Richmond Pick 1 Sam Lalor is set to be "cruised" through to January after the club has opted to manage his loads following hamstring surgery four months ago.
Lalor burst onto the AFL scene in 2025, but was hindered by multiple hamstring setbacks, limiting his maiden campaign to 11 matches.
The gun midfield-forward got a head start on his rehab, and has slowly been building up his loads, which should have him primed for the new season, says Tigers High Performance Manager Ben Serpell.
"Sammy is doing quite well; he's four months post-surgery. If he's in-season, he's probably playing right now, but we have an opportunity now to manage his loads for the next little while, and make sure that we cruise him through to January," Serpell said.
"He's getting more and more football done. He ran 11 kilometres of footy (on Friday), and said he hasn't been able to do that since this time last year."
Fellow top draftee Josh Smillie is facing a similar timeline after a frustrating year dealing with quad issues.
Smillie didn't make his AFL debut, but the club is priming him
"Josh is a couple of weeks post-surgery now and feeling really good. He is due to return running right in the middle of our Christmas break," Serpell said.
"So we will do some preparatory work with him before we go away, and we will give him a delayed return-to-run, so he's in a good position come end of January - early February."
Thomas Sims had elbow and ankle problems post-season, resulting in navicular stress fracture surgery, with Serpell believing he'll be "touch-and-go" for Round 1 against Carlton.
Veteran Nick Vlastuin is back up and running from a syndesmosis foot injury he sustained in Round 23 against North Melbourne.
Serpell also revealed that the older group of Toby Nankervis, Tom Lynch, Dion Prestia, Tim Taranto and Jacob Hopper have been eased back into the pre-season.
"We like to look after some of our older guys at this time of year," Serpell said.
"We tend to make sure they're not doing too much at this time of year, to get them through to January and get a lot of training done there.
"The reality is, Lynch has done more training this Pre-Season, than he has the last two years, and the same with Dion.
"We'll keep looking after them for a while and see them have more time on the track in early January."
