Richmond utility Brett Deledio is unlikely to play in Thursday night’s AFL season-opener against Carlton.

The 28-year-old did not train with the main group at the Club’s open training session on Sunday.

Richmond’s General Manager of Football, Dan Richardson, said the Club would not take any risks with Deledio ahead of Round 1. 

“He’s had some tightness in his quad over the last few days, hence you saw yesterday he was on a restricted program,” Richardson said.

“At this stage, we don’t think he’ll be any better tomorrow, so we won’t take the risk.”

Richardson said there was no specific incident that caused the soreness, but it likely stemmed from the Club’s third-round NAB Challenge match against Port Adelaide two weeks ago.

Deledio is expected to be available for Richmond’s Round 2 clash with Collingwood at the MCG on Friday week (April 1). 

“He has had it (his quad) scanned and it hasn’t shown anything on the scan, so it would mean we’d have to reassess again next week,” Richardson said.

“We’d expect him to be available, but these things can change, as we’ve even seen over the last few days.

“It’s nothing serious . . . we think it’s probably better not to take the risk.”

Meanwhile talented small forward Shane Edwards, who suffered bruising and some nerve swelling to his left shoulder against Port Adelaide, is on track to feature in Thursday night’s match.  

But midfielder Shaun Grigg, who fractured his left thumb against the Power, was still unlikely to be named for the season-opener. 

“Grigg trained a bit earlier than expected yesterday, but you may have noticed a guard on his thumb, that’s still a bit sore.  I would think he’d be unlikely as well, given it’s only 10 days or so post-operation,” Richardson said.

“He’s certainly progressing a bit quicker than what we anticipated.”