Two developing Tiger ‘talls’, playing at opposite ends of the ground, caught coach Damien Hardwick’s eye in the team’s 41-point loss to Hawthorn in last Friday night’s NAB Challenge match at Shepparton.

Hardwick liked what he saw of the continued emergence of Ty Vickery, up forward, and Alex Rance, down back.

Vickery, coming off a break-out, five-goal performance against Port Adelaide in a NAB Challenge match at Alice Springs the previous week, was clearly Richmond’s best forward on the night, with two of the team’s seven goals, while Rance did a fine job on dangerous Hawk key forward Lance Franklin after being shifted on to him.

“I thought Ty was terrific, probably one of our better players again tonight.  He looks damaging up forward, quite capable of taking a mark and really composed at ground level, too,” Hardwick said.

“Without Jack there, obviously, we really do struggle for secondary options, but we thought Ty stood up with regard to that . . .

“We predominantly see him playing (in the 2011 season) 80% forward and 20% ruck.  We feel for him to get better . . . he’s done a fair bit of ruckwork for us over the course of the last two years, so he just needs to keep working on his forward stuff and go on from there. 

“He’s moving well.  He’s taken some really strong grabs . . . probably could have finished off with a few more goals tonight if he’d converted a bit better, but there were some pleasing signs.

“And, Rancey has made some terrific inroads . . .

“Look, he’s starting to find the balance between defence and offence.  Prior to that, he was probably a little bit too offensive. 

“He’s starting to play some very good football for us, and he’s making us make some hard decisions about who’s available for Round 1.”