Good news on Tiger’s injury front
richmondfc.com.au
By Mic Cullen
5:30 PM Tue 22 July, 2008
WILL Thursfield was back last weekend, Matthew Richardson is due back this weekend and Mark Coughlan is going well in the VFL.
Finally, some good-news injury stories out of Punt Rd to counter the bad-news ones of Graham Polak and Kane Pettifer.
And even the Polak story is moving in the right direction.
Thursfield has pulled up well from his first game since the round 11 clash with Adelaide, and fellow hamstring complainant Matthew Richardson (who also added knee troubles into the mix) – is a good chance to be back for this weekend's clash with Brisbane.
"He [Richardson] trained yesterday and he got through that session pretty well, had a bit of a kick around today in what was basically a skills-based session, but he's got through a couple of solid sessions," coach Terry Wallace said on Tuesday.
"He's been out for probably over-and-above the time of a normal hamstring – it'll be nearly four weeks before he'll step back on to the ground, so timing says that he should play.
"But he's got to get through the week."
Following his trip to Germany for treatment, Coughlan is progressing well in his recovery from hamstring issues.
"Mark's back playing footy now, he's played for a couple of weeks and played at senior VFL level on the weekend and got through the game okay.
"He needs to get a continuity of five or six games running, just to find out exactly where he's at, and until you can do that, and until you can trust your body to that degree, you don't know where it takes you.
"Look, he's still a fair way off playing form at the moment, but that can come to hand pretty quick once you start playing regular footy."
Injured tall Polak continues to improve after being struck by a tram last month.
"Graham's slowly coming along. He's spent a little bit of time at home on the weekend. I got a text message from him before the game saying he was able to go home and watch the game on Saturday, and that's another pleasing step.
"I'm not quite sure where some of the media comments come that he was running around kicking a footy, which certainly wasn't the case.
"He's growing and developing in each thing he's been asked to do, and he's able to now do some mechanical exercise and keep himself a little bit fit just from a wellbeing point-of-view, but that's about where it stands."
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