Bombers too strong for Tiger cubs in injury ravaged Dreamtime at the ’G clash as debutant shines

Richmond coach Adem Yze hopes he will only lose Sam Lalor and Thomson Dow for a game, but that will depend on their injury assessments.

“Sammy Lalor… we think it’s just a slight hammy, [we’re] not sure how bad it is,” Yze said.

“Dow’s kneecap slipped out. Depending on what sort of damage that does, he’s most likely going to miss as well. It’s happened to him before, [but I’m] not sure if he missed a game so hopefully we’ll get lucky there.”

Yze said skipper Toby Nankervis had been dealing with a knee issue for weeks and the decision to rest him was an attempt to break the cycle and avoid making the injury worse.

“[With a] five-day break, it just made sense,” Yze said.

“The risk was, if we kept pushing him through, he’d miss more than one game. So, we’re hoping this would do – that he would just miss one and get back in for the next couple of weeks and look to the bye.”

Veteran midfielder Dion Prestia will play three quarters of the game in the VFL on Saturday night. Yze had earlier said it would be half a game, but he corrected himself tonight.

“Dion hopefully will get through on Saturday night, and then we could get three players to filter back into our team,” Prestia said.

“Three quarters over the game – essentially he will play a full game and should be available next week. He will be itching to get out there tomorrow night.

“A few of the boys will go watch him and cheer him on.”

Essendon, meanwhile, look likely to face the reigning premiers next week without two key players after an injury-plagued Dreamtime at the ‘G, though coach Brad Scott offered some optimism on the return of highly-rated defender Zach Reid.

Scott said he wasn’t sure Reid was injured, but the 23-year-old had felt something was wrong so they acted.

“Reidy can almost sense something with his hamstring,” Scott said. “He feels something, [and] we just have no choice at this stage of his career with his injury history, [so] we just took him off and ruled him out.

“Fingers crossed with that one, but we won’t be able to update or give you a conclusive answer until we’ve had a scan.”

Scott was more optimistic about Reid’s return than Kyle Langford, who would wait for scans on his quad after he came off injured in the second quarter.

“When you feel your quad, kicking, especially kicking from outside 50 – it’d be hard to believe he hasn’t got a quad strain,” he said.

Asked about Nik Cox’s ongoing challenges with a concussion, Scott said it was disappointing but players’ health is the priority.

“Football is really important – we play in this unbelievable competition, but there are things that are more important, and we’ll just give Nik all the time that he needs,” he said.

Scott added that the game had come a long way, and dismissed criticisms of forced retirements due to concussion.

“20 years ago, that didn’t happen,” he explained.

“We put players at risk for the rest of their lives. It’s actually positive, in my view, because we’re identifying it and looking after the players better than we ever have.”