RICHMOND has suffered a fresh injury concern, with small forward Dan Butler ruled out of Saturday's clash against Greater Western Sydney with a groin injury.
The Tigers are set to be boosted by the return of midfielder Dion Prestia, who has missed two matches with hamstring soreness, but coach Damien Hardwick forecast more than just one change.
The coach was hopeful Butler, who has been a key player in the Tigers' small and quick forward line, would miss just one match.
"We've got to reward some guys at VFL level, so there'll probably be more than one change," Hardwick said on Thursday.
"Young Dan Butler's got a groin complaint, so he'll miss this week.
"There were a couple of disappointing performances and we've got to reward some guys at VFL level."
Half-forward Sam Lloyd shapes as a likely replacement for Butler after an impressive run in the VFL, while midfielders Anthony Miles and Jacob Townsend and half-forward Ben Lennon have pushed strong cases.
The Tigers travel to Spotless Stadium hoping to break a three-game losing streak, with last Sunday's heartbreaking loss to Fremantle sending them to 5-3.
Hardwick said the team had worked through the final centre bounce of that match in this week's review, acknowledging that the players had not set up correctly.
"There's some things there that we could have definitely fixed, there's no doubt about that," the coach said.
"We didn't quite get our set-up right, but there's 18 moving parts and they've got to move pretty quickly with 20 seconds to go.
"We acknowledge the last 20 seconds, which in theory lost us the game, but for 80 per cent of that game we didn't play incredibly well at any stage."
Retention inside 50 has become a major issue for the Tigers, who rank 18th across the last four rounds for both inside 50 kick retention (44 per cent) and scores per inside 50 (40 per cent).
Hardwick highlighted the Tigers' contested ball and stoppage set-ups as shortcomings and said the team had worked on improving its inside 50 retention this week.
"It probably wasn't at its best last week and our guys got found a little bit high up the ground, which has normally been a strength of ours," he said.
"Our defensive pressure wasn't as good also.
"We addressed that this morning actually, and we'll train it today to make sure we get that right."
A lack of tall support for Jack Riewoldt has contributed to Richmond's inside 50 troubles, and it emerged on Thursday that the club had made contact with Brisbane Lions forward Josh Schache's manager, David Trotter.
"We've met with David but we haven't met with the player directly, nor do we think that's appropriate at this time of year … there is no offer on the table," Tigers list manager Dan Richardson told Fairfax Media.
Hardwick said chasing the key tall, who was recruited by the Lions with pick No.2 in the 2015 NAB AFL Draft, was not his concern at this stage of the season.
"Those list management decisions I don't really take too much notice at this time of year … I just focus on what I can control," he said.
Hardwick also played down reports this week that star free agent Dustin Martin was being "shopped around" to rival clubs by manager Ralph Carr.
"We’re happy with where it's at at the moment … we love Dustin and Dustin loves us," he said.
"Where that takes us we'll find out at some stage.
"His manager has been doing some really good work with Dustin and with us, so we're quite happy with where it's at."
