Prestia on way back to running

REIGNING Richmond best and fairest Dion Prestia will start running again on Tuesday as he prepares to make his comeback from an ankle injury at the business end of the season.

But All-Australian defender Dylan Grimes has been ruled out of Wednesday’s clash with Fremantle because of his “minor” hamstring injury from the 27-point win over West Coast last Thursday night.

The premiership duo were both away from the main group at Metricon Stadium on Monday.

Sidelined since Round 5, Prestia recently had a setback when he had an infection in his ankle that required antibiotics to flush it out via an intravenous drip, which he wore, connected to a bum bag carrying fluid, while walking laps.

The midfielder and former Gold Coast Sun was set to have the intravenous drip removed later in the day.

Richmond physical performance manager Peter Burge said Prestia was seeing a surgeon on Monday and his running would progress in the next fortnight.

“The actual original injury looks really good, but unfortunately the infection caused a bit of a disruption to our rehab plans,” Burge said.

“At this stage, we’re looking potentially at the last game or probably finals, realistically.

“We’re not sure about the pre-finals bye yet but if that does happen, it will buy us an extra week.

“With scrimmage games each week, we could look at playing him in one of those to build his match fitness, or straight back into the team.”