Simmonds, who has played forward extensively in the past, will also fill a support role in the ruck for promising youngster Angus Graham, who has impressed in the last couple of weeks.
"[Angus] has been very good, and he was also pretty good down forward last week," Richmond coach Terry Wallace said at Punt Rd on Friday.
"I think that Troy certainly has the ability to play as a forward, but he's equally adept in the ruck, so it's not really speaking out of school to say that he'll pretty much play both roles as Angus did last week. So that's what we expect him to do."
In addition to Simmonds, the Tigers have regained experienced duo Ben Cousins and Nathan Brown for the clash with the Lions, but have lost spiritual leader Richardson for the next couple of months at least.
They have struggled this year, with only a round five win over North Melbourne in the bank, while the Lions have been inconsistent, but terrific last week when they dismantled Essendon in Dustin Fletcher's 300th game.
At the other end of the ground from Simmonds, the Lions will serve up significant challenges in the forms of skipper Jonathan Brown and Daniel Bradshaw, who last year kicked a combined 145 goals, and this season have managed 37.
Wallace said Luke McGuane and Kel Moore would share the duties on the fearsome duo, but warned that many other dangers also existed.
"[Brown's] a champion player, we all know that. When you look at the Brisbane lineup, they've got five or six topliners that have been there the whole way through their premiership campaigns.
"But now they've got some really nice young players coming through as well, and the combination has seen them win some good games this year.
"I thought they played very well last week.
"But it's our home game, and you expect to win when you have interstate sides coming to your home game, as the interstate sides expect to win when they're playing on their home turf.
"We thought that we played quite well last week – we didn't do the first quarter well and that's hurt us in a couple of games so far because we've been playing catch-up footy and we've got to try to get that right."
