Taj Hotton is targeting a return by June next year, but Richmond will take a cautious approach with the highly rated teenager out of the Sandringham Dragons.
Hotton ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during a training session at Haileybury College in May and underwent surgery a month later, wiping out most of his draft year.
The 18-year-old underwent minor follow-up surgery in October and is set to start running again in the pre-Christmas training block.
New Richmond high performance boss Ben Serpell, who was appointed to replace Luke Meehan in October after working as a strength and conditioning coach at Geelong, following high performance roles with the Wallabies and the New South Wales Waratahs, is working on a rehab plan for Hotton at Punt Road.
"Taj is super keen, but we will take the full 12 months to rehab him," Serpell told AFL.com.au on Friday.
"We are still getting our heads around where he's at. He met with his surgeon midweek and we'll get the details from him and start to build a plan for that and hopefully have him out there relatively soon.
"We'll probably take the full 12 months and look after the kid. He's got a long career ahead of him."
https://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/1699899/got-a-long-career-ahead-tigers-cautious-approach-to-gun-draftees-return
