Richmond coach Adem Yze revealed the club has spoken to the AFL regarding the need for top-up players as the injury crisis deepened following Sunday's loss to St Kilda.
The Tigers will lose defender Campbell Gray to a hamstring injury, youngsters Sam Cumming copped a corkie but soldiered on while veteran Nick Vlastuin is under MRO scrutiny for a dangerous tackle on Ryan Byrnes. The Saint played out the game but the action could be penalised ahead of Friday's Dreamtime at the G clash.
Richmond has a whopping 18 players on the injury list prior to the Saints clash, and are hopeful are few troops (Jasper Alger and Mykelti Lefau) will be in line to face Essendon.
"[Gray] has tweaked his hammy, I don't know how bad that is, he'll get scans tomorrow. Sammy Cumming is a beauty, he copped a corkie and wanted to get back out there, he's such a tough kid," Yze said following the 36-point loss.
"We made the decision yesterday with our VFL (team), Samson Ryan didn't play, and Kaleb Smith would have played, but we kept him out of that game. We've got a five-day break going into the Essendon game, so we had to manage. We'll give them a training session.
"We had to have those discussions (having 26 fit players) around this game, really. We felt like this was the game that was more at risk with that. 'Livo' (football boss Tim Livingstone) got on the phone with the AFL just in case there was an outbreak with gastro, we couldn't put – Kaleb Smith wasn't realistically available for AFL, he was managed minutes (off a groin injury).
"We just had to make sure we were doing the right thing and what the process is around it. We know what that process is, but we shouldn't have to go down that path, based on the fact we should have a few more available next week. We didn't go that far (of identifying VFL players), just about what is the process, how does it look if we needed to go to it, if there's a 1 percent chance, what does that look like."
Richmond could utilise next week's Mid-Season Draft to add another couple names to its list.
Tasmania Devils defender Jaxon Artemis is attracting interest from AFL clubs, including the Tigers, and is tipped to head to Punt Road on May 26.
