Richmond’s stand-in senior coach Brendon Lade has outlined the Club’s approach to the AFL’s pre-season NAB Challenge series.

Lade, who has taken the coaching reins from Damien Hardwick for the Tigers’ first two NAB Challenge matches, declared that preparing for the opening round match of the season proper, against Carlton on March 24, was the clear focus.

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“However we think we get the best preparation into all of our players, we’ll do it.  So, whether that’s winning or losing, or playing whoever we play, we’ll do it,” Lade said. 

“First week (against Fremantle), you saw we had a lot of young guys out there . . . giving them an opportunity to see what they could do in our system. 

“The next two weeks we’ll ramp it up and have a lot of our senior players back. 

“We think, as a club, two games is probably perfect going into Round 1, and that’s what we’re aiming for.”

With that in mind, Tiger stars such as captain Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin and Jack Riewoldt will return to the line-up for Saturday’s NAB Challenge clash with Hawthorn at Beaconsfield.

“We get a few of our senior players coming back into the side this week, which is great,” Lade said.

“We look forward to them . . . They’ll be blowing a bit early, but they should be good by the end of the game.

“We’ll still have a few of our younger guys playing as well – we get a mix of both – but getting some of our senior players back is really good for the whole team, and we get to keep preparing for Round 1 . . .

“We’ve got some things we didn’t do well last week as a team, so we’ll try and improve them. 

“The players that are coming in will help.  But with the young guys still playing, there’s an expectation that we get them up to speed and playing how we want to play.”