THERE was good news and bad news on the injury front at Tigerland on Tuesday – Matthew Richardson is doubtful, Will Thursfield is definitely out, but Mark Coughlan made it though his game in the VFL.

But it will be Richardson that the Punt Rd faithful will be hanging out to hear about – after battling a knee to get through to the break, the hamstring has become an issue and coach Terry Wallace wasn't sounding all that confident about the Brownlow chance lining up against the Eagles.

"He's certainly not over the line," he said on Tuesday. "We'll have our major session on Thursday, and he'd need to be able to come through that.

"When we had the original scans done, he got cleared of any major damage to the hamstring – it's been as much the knee that's been giving him problems over a five or six week period.

"We wonder whether that just put a little bit of stress and strain on the hammy, because it's the other side – it's one of those where you overplay it a little bit.

"He's still got a bit of work to do."

Thursfield has not played since round 11, and although named for the clash with Carlton a couple of weeks ago, Wallace said he too was still having hamstring issues.

"He wasn't right in that week – we thought he might have been right, and he was getting tendon soreness down lower in the hamstring, and they are a little more difficult to predict.

"When they're tendon-related, they can just hang on a little bit."

But the good news is that 2003 Dyer Medallist Coughlan got through three quarters of VFL reserves for Coburg before being taken from the ground for the final term to rest.

"I was really pleased that he got through – we only played him at VFL reserve grade level just for the fact that he has control of how much game time [he played]. If something went wrong and you wanted to pull the pin after 15minutes, it's easier to do it at that level.

"He'll definitely play VFL seniors this week, and we expect him to start stepping up.

"It's probably the first time that I've seen him on the training track really seriously kicking through the footy and driving the footy.

"Over the last seven days probably, it's the first time I've seen him do it since the knee down in Tasmania, so it's been that long since I've actually seen him look free and really kicking the ball like he really wants to kick the footy."