RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick is backing spearhead Tom Lynch to handle facing his old club for the first time.
Lynch has kicked 31 goals this season since crossing from the Gold Coast - the Tigers' opponent on Saturday at Metricon Stadium - to be sitting fifth in the Coleman medal as the season passes its halfway point.
"You look at Tom's career there, he's a decorated player at that footy club, gave eight years of service, and this is what free agency is for," Hardwick said.
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"He wanted to come home and try his hand at Richmond Football Club, which we're enormously grateful for.
"I think the Gold Coast people will understand this guy gave up eight years of his life to basically form that footy club, gave enormous service, I'm not sure how many best and fairests he's won up there (two), but he's a quality player.
"He'll certainly be welcomed up there, I'm not sure if it'll be a welcome that you and me would probably think, but once again, it's part and parcel of the game."
Fellow star forward Jack Riewoldt is an outside chance to play his first game since injuring his PCL in round six.
"He's harassing me, at the moment, Jack," Hardwick said with a grin.
"He's probably less likely than more likely. He'll train today (Thursday), and he'll train really, really well, but once again it comes down to a medical call. We'll trust our medical guys to put the player first, which obviously they do on a weekly basis.
"It's looking unlikely at this stage, but we'll see how he trains. There is a small chance, but with a player of Jack's calibre, we'll always be overly cautious. We'll wait and see."
Dynamic defender Sydney Stack stole the show last week with a shock move up forward, netting four goals, and could be in line to play yet another position against the Suns.
"He'll probably start forward again I'd say at this stage, we do like that. We would have liked him to have had a little more midfield time as well last week," Hardwick said.
"We're starting to bring it into his game to see what he can add through that part of the ground for us, so that'll be something else we'll look to bring to his game this week.
"He's always been a contested ball winner, always been a goalkicker, but primarily he's played through the middle in his junior career. Once again, that's probably where we think he'll end up. He's year one ahead of a long AFL career, so it will take a little bit of time."
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The Suns currently sit on the bottom of the ladder, but Hardwick said this week's opponents hadn't been blown out of too many games.
"The thing they do really well is they're a high secondary-stoppage side, they have a lot of stoppages overall. They try to keep the ball in a tight bubble, so that's how they keep the game tight.
"Once again, they play the game in a certain way, we need to make sure we take that away from them as best we can. Credit where credit's due, I think Stuart (Dew) has got them playing a good, sustainable long-term brand of football that's really hard to beat.
"You look at every coach that's spoken about Gold Coast and the way they play the game, there's enormous respect for the way they're going about it, because they're hard and tough to beat."
