Rising Richmond defender Josh Gibcus appears to have suffered a serious right knee injury during the second quarter of Thursday night's match against Carlton.

The 20-year-old soared high to spoil a ball, landing heavily with a relatively straight leg, with his foot appearing to plant in the turf, and was stretchered off the field.

"It's a suspected ACL. We'll get an MRI tomorrow, but poor kid deserves a break," Richmond footy boss Tim Livingstone said.

"He battled all through last year with his head up, and he's praying for it, but it doesn't look good at the moment."

Wearing Alex Rance's old No.18, it was a scene eerily reminiscent of the champion Richmond defender's own torn ACL, also suffered against Carlton at the start of a season.

Gibcus missed the entirety of the 2023 season with a serious hamstring injury.

The Tigers finished the game with two fit players on the bench, after Dion Prestia was subbed out of the match at quarter-time with hamstring tightness, and Tylar Young suffered a concussion.

Kamdyn McIntosh and Noah Balta were moved to the backline in an attempt to combat the twin towers of Charlie Curnow and Harry McKay, leaving the forward line with one key forward – an underdone Tom Lynch – and Dustin Martin.

"I spoke to the boys around that, it's a good word, proud, and it's how we felt as coaches," coach Adem Yze said.

"We had players changing positions, changing roles, positions they hadn't played before, but for them to show some grit and stay in the game – we lost our way last week, and we spoke a lot around staying in the moment, what's important and staying in the game, and that was more around momentum. But this was more around structure and positioning. 

"But to their credit, we couldn't be more proud of our players. To lose two key defenders by half-time, let alone Dion, a leader of our footy club, and to respond the way they did and keep toiling away, we're super proud of them."

Yze described the Gibcus incident as "gut-wrenching" and said the Tigers were counting the cost of opting to play the injury-prone Prestia off a five-day turnaround.

"I'm not sure if it's the same side (as his injury last month), all I know is that he had a tight hammy and they'll go through the scans," Yze said.

"I feel for him. It was always a risk, with a five-day break. And to be fair, you talk about pride and being proud of performance, on the back of a five-day break, a hot day on the Gold Coast, to be able to sustain that performance for the whole night is part of the reason we were super proud of them. 

"But it's also part of the reason it was a little bit risky, even with Dylan Grimes (pre-season calf injury) – we were rapt he got through the game, but there's always this risk in playing some of our older players off a five-day break. But we'll live and learn."