Richmond assistant coach Brendon Lade is extremely grateful for the opportunity he’s been handed in the Tigers’ opening round NAB Challenge match against Fremantle at Mandurah on Friday.

Lade, who has senior coaching ambitions, will take the reins from Damien Hardwick in the opening round NAB Challenge match, with the regular coach to work from the bench.

“It’s a good experience for me and I really appreciate the Club and ‘Dimma’ (Damien Hardwick) for giving me the opportunity to keep developing my role as a coach,” Lade said.

The former Port Adelaide ruckman, who is entering his seventh season as an assistant coach at Richmond, isn't planning any radical changes to the way the Tigers go about their on-field business.

“Not much changes with the way we play, so I'm not going to go out there and put all our forwards in the backline and our backs in the forward line.  It’s just about getting our structures right,” he said.

“For me, it's more the experience of the whole week . . .  going through people’s presentations, deciding what we show the players, what we don’t show them.  Just the other side that I haven’t really done before . . . 

“We’ll see how we go.  And, if I don't like it, I probably won’t become a senior coach."