Richmond faces a nervous wait to know if Shane Edwards has suffered a serious leg injury after he left the MCG on crutches on Friday night.

There were fears that Edwards, who has been one of the Tigers most important players this season, had suffered a crack in his lower left leg before he was substituted from Richmond's 30-point win over Carlton at the MCG.

The 26-year-old limped from the ground before being assessed by trainers and made a brief attempt to run out the injury, which was quickly aborted.

He left the ground with the team post-match on crutches.   

"I'm just speculating at this stage, but we hope it's not [a crack]," coach Damien Hardwick said after the game. 
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"We're hoping it's not too nasty but he'll have further scans probably tomorrow.

"It's not looking dire at this stage … he's such an important player to us.

"We just cross our fingers with that one."

Edwards has averaged career high disposals (20.8), inside 50s (3.5) and clearances (4.0) this season, becoming a vital attacking cog in the Tigers' midfield.

His absence was felt in the final three quarters on Friday night as Richmond ground out an ugly win, failing to convert forward entries into scores.

"We ended up with 13 marks inside 50 but I think we had six in the last quarter when the game opened up a little bit," Hardwick said.

"You work hard to get the ball there, but if you don't finish the ball just comes back the other way.

"To have 52 entries inside 50 and only kick 10 goals, it's not good enough. We've just got to work on that.

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"It wasn't pretty at all, but we take the win and we move on."

Hardwick said it was a sign of the Tigers' maturity that they could play below their best and still win, having now won seven of their past eight games to sit fifth on the ladder.

"Twelve months or 24 months ago, if we're not playing our best footy we don't win," he said.

"If you look at the last 25 games we've played, we've won a lot (17 games).  

"We're nowhere near playing our best at the moment, we understand that, but we're winning. We've got a lot of improvement in us."

Star defender Alex Rance was at his best on Friday night, but Hardwick played down the All Australian's influence.   

"He was very good defensively, but offensively he probably hurt us a little bit," he said.  

"He was complaining with me after the game that I moved him away from the play at various stages.

"But put it this way, if he didn't play the first half we would probably have been behind."