Tigers’ Lynch-pin doubt for finals

RICHMOND was sweating on scans that could determine whether star spearhead Tom Lynch will be fit to play in the club’s elimination final in a fortnight’s time.

Lynch has returned to his best this year with a 60-goal home and away season but finished Saturday night’s win over Essendon on the bench with ice on the right side of his groin.

In the Tigers’ favour is the annual week off before finals, where they will play Collingwood or Brisbane, but the 29year-old said post-match the soreness in his groin worsened after surfacing in the third term.

Lynch kicked all of his five goals in the second half – giving him 21 in the past month – before leaving for good midway through the fourth term.

“It’s just a little bit of groin soreness. I’ll have a scan (Sunday) and see how it feels, but hopefully it’ll be fine, I’ll get the week off, then obviously finals,” Lynch told Channel 7.

“It got worse and worse throughout the game, so I was pretty sore in that last quarter (but) we’ll know more tomorrow.”

Coach Damien Hardwick was hesitant to offer an opinion on Lynch’s chances of being ready for the first week of finals until the scan results came back.

“During the third quarter it sort of flared up, so we’ll have a better understanding … once he gets some scans,” Hardwick said. “It’s never a good sign when a guy finishes the game on the bench.”

Dustin Martin (hamstring) trained strongly on Saturday and is on track to return for the elimination final but Hardwick said Jack Graham (turf toe) was “touch and go”.