Two of Richmond’s mature-age recruits over the past couple of years will return to the playing field with Coburg in the VFL this weekend after being sidelined with injury in the opening rounds of the 2011 season.
Mitch Farmer, 22, and Tom Derickx, 23, will line up for the Coburg Tigers in their clash with Northern Bullants at Coburg City Oval on Sunday (April 17).
Farmer had an impact in his first season with Richmond in 2010, following a couple of years at rival league club Port Adelaide.
He played 17 of the first 19 rounds, impressing with his long kicking, hardness and versatility, before a knee injury prematurely ended his season.
It’s been a bruised heel, however, which has kept him out of action until now in season 2011 - the same injury that’s troubled Derickx.
The 201cm, 101kg Derickx was Richmond’s fifth pick (no. 63 overall) in the 2010 AFL National Draft, after an eye-catching debut season of senior football with Claremont in the WAFL competition.
“They’ve been training really well for the last three or four weeks,” said Richmond’s Elite Performance Manager Matthew Hornsby.
“They’ve had restrictions with those bruised heels, but have been joining in full training for the last week . . .
“They’ll be involved at Coburg this weekend, get their game time up over the next couple of weeks, and then get back into playing senior footy.”
Meanwhile, three other injured Tigers are making good progress in their quest to resume playing . . .
Reliable defender Kel Moore, promising tall forward Ben Griffiths and tough utility Tom Hislop are all back in full training.
“Really, it’s just a matter of getting some really specific work into them, given that they’ve been out of action for an extended period of time,” Hornsby said.
“It’s great to see them back out there training with the group and I know they’re pretty excited about it and can’t wait to get back into playing in the next couple of weeks . . .
“We’ve obviously been pretty cautious with Ben because of his history with having both shoulders reconstructed over the past few years.
“He had some issues with them last year, had some fairly significant surgery done at the end of the season, and we always said that we wouldn’t go by a time frame, that we’d actually go by measurables with him.
“We want to make sure that we’ve got certain criteria that we meet from his shoulder rehab. before we return him to play.
“It’s pleasing to see that he’s ticked a lot of those boxes already . . . it just means that we get some more confidence when we throw him into full contact that his body will stand up to the rigors.”
