Richmond will trial playing two ruckmen for this Sunday’s Round 16 clash with St Kilda at Etihad Stadium.
The impending return of Ivan Maric from suspension, and the strong form of Shaun Hampson, his replacement last week, means the Tigers are able to tinker with their setup.
The recent suspension of key forward Ty Vickery, and the continued absence of tall target Ben Griffiths, also opened up the door for the two-pronged ruck duo.
Vickery, along with Shane Edwards, will be absent forward-line members from last week’s win over the Blues.
“Both (Vickery and Edwards) have been very good contributors over the last month. There’s going to be some changes to our forward line,” Hardwick told the media on Thursday.
“We’ve got some players who are putting up their hands. We’ve got players at VFL level who are playing well, and kicking goals.
“I thought he (Hampson) played an incredible game (last week). He was one of our better players on the night.
“We’ll try the two rucks and see how that goes. We haven’t played it at various stages, but with our key position stocks – Ben being injured and Ty being suspended – we’ve probably got an opportunity to see how it goes.
“Ivan has played forward at various stages before and kicked goals, so we’ll see how that transpires.”
Despite injuries and suspensions causing the team to re-shuffle this week, Hardwick is looking forward to several other Richmond players being available for selection in the coming weeks.
“Reece Conca plays his first game (in the VFL this weekend) for about 21 weeks, which is a long time,” he said.
“Corey Ellis is back playing this week, Jason Castagna is back. We’re starting to get some players back through our VFL side.
“We feel that will help us come the back end of the year. We’ve probably got four players out of our side at the moment that we’d love to have back in.
“We’ve got some players at VFL level that are playing some really good footy also.”
