Campbell, Hall ruled out
Barry Levinson
afl.com.au
4:20:22 PM Wed 14 May, 2003
Richmond is confident of regaining forwards Matthew Richardson and Adam Houlihan for Saturday night’s clash with Melbourne at the MCG, but skipper Wayne Campbell and mobile ruckman Ray Hall have both been ruled out.
Richardson has missed the past two matches with a strained hamstring, Houlihan one game with a similar injury.
But the Tigers have already decided to take a more cautious approach with Campbell, who strained a calf against Port Adelaide in round six and Hall, who has also missed a week with a groin injury.
“We’re going on the side of conservatism and giving him another week,” Richmond assistant coach Darren Crocker said of Campbell.
“He was a chance earlier in the week, but he had the same sort of injury a couple of years ago and came back and re-injured it. We just feel that in the current situation it would be best to give him another week and get him fully right to go the week after.”
Crocker said before training at the MCG on Wednesday that both Richardson and Houlihan were likely to be selected in the side if they completed the session successfully.
Richardson moved freely and appeared to have no problems sprinting. Houlihan finished the session also, but did not look quite as comfortable.
While Richardson has a history of re-injuring his left hamstring, Crocker said there was less concern this time around, as the strain was to his right one.
“We’re confident he’ll be right. He’s moved well so far throughout the week, along with Adam Houlihan.
“It’s actually not the hamstring he’s injured in the past and had a history with, it’s the other one. He’s pretty confident that he’ll be okay.”
Richmond, watched on by several Demon coaching officials, had a solid hour-long workout on the MCG.
Melbourne was due to conduct its Wednesday training session on the ground immediately after.
When asked if he was concerned about the pace of the Demons’ midfield, Crocker said he was confident that the Tigers possessed the right ingredients in their own engine room.
“We believe that we’ve got enough pace there without changing the mix too much,” he said. “You don’t want to change the mix when you’re coming off a good win.
“We’ve identified that Melbourne actually are a genuine footy team and they obviously were put under enormous pressure (last week) and came out and responded really well.
“They’ve played a lot of finals football over the last few years so we’ve just got to make sure that our consistency of effort and our honesty with the way we go about it is there again.”
Barry Levinson
afl.com.au
4:20:22 PM Wed 14 May, 2003
Richmond is confident of regaining forwards Matthew Richardson and Adam Houlihan for Saturday night’s clash with Melbourne at the MCG, but skipper Wayne Campbell and mobile ruckman Ray Hall have both been ruled out.
Richardson has missed the past two matches with a strained hamstring, Houlihan one game with a similar injury.
But the Tigers have already decided to take a more cautious approach with Campbell, who strained a calf against Port Adelaide in round six and Hall, who has also missed a week with a groin injury.
“We’re going on the side of conservatism and giving him another week,” Richmond assistant coach Darren Crocker said of Campbell.
“He was a chance earlier in the week, but he had the same sort of injury a couple of years ago and came back and re-injured it. We just feel that in the current situation it would be best to give him another week and get him fully right to go the week after.”
Crocker said before training at the MCG on Wednesday that both Richardson and Houlihan were likely to be selected in the side if they completed the session successfully.
Richardson moved freely and appeared to have no problems sprinting. Houlihan finished the session also, but did not look quite as comfortable.
While Richardson has a history of re-injuring his left hamstring, Crocker said there was less concern this time around, as the strain was to his right one.
“We’re confident he’ll be right. He’s moved well so far throughout the week, along with Adam Houlihan.
“It’s actually not the hamstring he’s injured in the past and had a history with, it’s the other one. He’s pretty confident that he’ll be okay.”
Richmond, watched on by several Demon coaching officials, had a solid hour-long workout on the MCG.
Melbourne was due to conduct its Wednesday training session on the ground immediately after.
When asked if he was concerned about the pace of the Demons’ midfield, Crocker said he was confident that the Tigers possessed the right ingredients in their own engine room.
“We believe that we’ve got enough pace there without changing the mix too much,” he said. “You don’t want to change the mix when you’re coming off a good win.
“We’ve identified that Melbourne actually are a genuine footy team and they obviously were put under enormous pressure (last week) and came out and responded really well.
“They’ve played a lot of finals football over the last few years so we’ve just got to make sure that our consistency of effort and our honesty with the way we go about it is there again.”
