RICHMOND captain Kane Johnson will be given the unenviable task of matching up on Chris Judd in his much-hyped AFL debut for the Blues.

“Out of the last six times we’ve played against him, Kane Johnson’s probably had him four out of the six,” coach Terry Wallace said.

“I don’t know where he’ll (Judd) line up…. Whether they’ll throw him into the middle of the action straight away, that’s their decision. We’ll have plan A and B but Kane’s pretty much been a regular on him.”

Former Western Bulldog Jordan McMahon and the Tigers’ other new addition, ex-Eagle Mitch Morton, should feature at the weekend but Wallace says there’s not likely to be any AFL debutants.

However, the club’s first draft pick and No. 2 overall (Trent Cotchin) is progressing well in his recovery from an achilles complaint and should be off the long term injury list and available for action again in round three.

“He’s now pain free, he’s raring to go, but he’s got to do a pre-season," Wallace said.

"He has missed the pre-season which everyone else has been working on for the last three or four months so he’s got to start that process now.

"We’re not in a hurry. When you’ve got a player who’s 17 years of age and you believe they’re going to have a 10-year career plus at the footy club, whether he plays round one, round four or round 12 makes no difference to us.”

As for the focus on his own performance, Wallace is aware that going into the fourth season of his contract at the helm of the 2007 wooden spooners he’ll have quite a bit of spotlight on him in 2008.

“What happens in this game is the microscope gets aimed at one person or one club," he said.

"If you handle that well like the Kangaroos, who I would have thought were in the same position last year and they handled it very well in the early part, and all of a sudden the cannons get aimed somewhere else fairly quickly along the way.

"We believe we’ve copped a fair bit over summer when there hasn’t been a ball kicked in earnest yet, but that’s the nature of when you’re 16th, you’ve got to wear that and do something about it.”