Tigers' stars to play intraclub match
Jordan Chong
The Age
February 14, 2007
Richmond's big guns will take the field for the first time ahead of this AFL season at Friday's intra-club match.
It was mainly the youngsters and a few locals who ran out at last week's hit-out in Wonthaggi, but Nathan Brown, Matthew Richardson, Kane Johnson and Darren Gaspar will play at Casey Fields in outer-suburban Cranbourne East.
New recruit Kent Kingsley, who suffered a minor hamstring strain at the end of January but has been back in full training, will also be on the field.
Tigers football operations manager Paul Armstrong said today the club was yet to determine where Kingsley, the ex-Geelong forward, would fit in the line-up.
"That's something we've got to work our way through - which is the best structure for us up forward and you'd expect him to be part of that," Armstrong said.
"What exact role he plays at this stage, we'll have to wait and see."
Richmond's forward line could potentially be one of the league's most powerful this year, with Kingsley set to join Brown, Richardson, Jay Schulz, Kayne Pettifer, Andrew Krakouer and Troy Simmonds in attack.
Armstrong said Simmonds was recovering well from an ankle injury and hoped to be available for round one of the regular season.
Also, Friday's match is the last opportunity to earn automatic selection for the Tigers' opening round NAB Cup match against Geelong.
All season, the club has run a "pre-season challenge", where players earn points for performing well at training.
The top 15 at the end of Friday's intra-club pick themselves to face the Cats on February 25.
In the latest standings posted on the club's website yesterday Nathan Foley, Brett Deledio, Cam Howat, Krakouer and Richard Tambling are in the top five, while Chris Newman is in 15th spot on 3326 points, 25 ahead of Kelvin Moore.
"They've really taken it on board," Armstrong said.
"It's really put a different emphasis on training, no matter what they're doing, they know they are being assessed."
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/articles/2007/02/14/1171128984066.html
