Richmond coach Damien Hardwick believes the Tigers’ recent spate of injuries to experienced stars will provide the Club with significant long-term benefits.

In the absence of captain Trent Cotchin, Shane Edwards, Dion Prestia and Kane Lambert, Richmond has turned to some of its raw, talented youth to fill the void.

And Hardwick is delighted with the way the Tiger cubs have responded at the game’s highest level.

“The positive for us is that we’ve found some players. Riley Collier-Dawkins, I thought, was terrific again last week. Young Hugo Ralphsmith showed he’s going to be a player of the future. (Rhyan) Mansell’s been terrific ever since he’s come into the side,” Hardwick said.

“We’re really excited to give those players the opportunity and, more importantly, they’re going to add to us going forward for the back end of the year as well.

“So, it’s been a little bit of a painful ride along the way, but the fact of the matter is we’ve found some solid gems out of it . . .

“With injury, you can sit there and dwell on it, or you can look at it as an opportunity. And we’re very much of the latter.

“Sometimes you don’t get to look at your young talent. This is an opportunity for us to do that.

“We’ve still got some young guys that we’d love to get in the side and have a look at again – Callum Coleman-Jones, Mabior Chol, Will Martyn . . . And we’ve just had young Thomson Dow come back into our VFL side . . . he had 31 touches (v GWS last Saturday afternoon). He’s another player we’d love to get a look at as well.

“So, the opportunity that we’ve been granted through injury has been really important to us and it holds us in good stead, I think, when we need to go back to it.”