TIGERS IN A TANGLE

Crows test tonight as major injury crisis strikes

THE greatest injury crisis of Damien Hardwick’s tenure has sidelined All Australians Trent Cotchin and Shane Edwards for tonight’s finals-shaping clash with Adelaide.

Five of Richmond’s six best players and eight of their top 13 from last year’s Jack Dyer Medal will miss the Crows clash.

Edwards has been ruled out with hamstring tendinitis, with the Tigers adamant Cotchin’s third hamstring episode of the season is only soreness rather than another tear. The Tigers’ injury plight could eventually influence a risky recall for Alex Rance during finals given their fading premiership hopes.

Of their eight Tigers in the All Australian squad of 40 last year, Jack Riewoldt, Rance, Kane Lambert, Edwards and Cotchin will miss and Josh Caddy is badly out of form.

Richmond will have to hang tough and hope it can burst up the ladder in a seven-match stretch of games to finish the home-and-away season.

In that stretch the Tigers take on contenders West Coast, Brisbane, Collingwood, Port Adelaide and GWS, plus Melbourne and Carlton.

Richmond football boss Neil Balme said yesterday the injury was only minor but given Cotchin has twice injured the hamstring this year he decided against risking it.

“He’s not going to play, he’s sore. It puts a bit more pressure on, but that’s all right,” he said.

“He’s just a bit sore in the hamstring — but it’s not the same.

“I reckon if he hadn’t have had the problem before, he would have played. The fact we’re playing on the Thursday makes it more difficult. If we’d played on Saturday or Sunday [he was a chance], but we won’t take the risk.”

A club whose leaders had seemed bullet-proof has lost the fourth-most games from injury to its best 22 this year.

Remarkably, by tomorrow only four of its players will have taken the field in all 13 games this year — Tom Lynch, Jack Higgins, Kamdyn McIntosh and Dion Prestia.