RICHMOND is breathing a sigh of relief with scans showing skipper Trent Cotchin has suffered only a minor hamstring injury.

Cotchin's game against Collingwood on Friday night ended before quarter-time when the 29-year-old pulled up sore.

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The latest issue is on the same leg but in a different spot to the two hamstring injuries he has previously suffered this year, which sidelined him for eight weeks in total.

At this stage, the club is expecting the low-grade complaint to see Cotchin miss two to three weeks.

Trent Cotchin chats with 200-gamer Bachar Houli after Friday night's game. Picture: AFL Photos



Speaking earlier, Richmond defender Nick Vlastuin said Cotchin had other things on his mind.

"We're not too sure how bad it is, he had a son (with wife Brooke) on Saturday night, so he hasn't been in the club the last couple of days," Vlastuin said.

The intercept defender (whose childhood nickname is "Tigger"), along with teammates Shane Edwards and Jack Graham, were at a Melbourne Zoo event celebrating International Tiger Day.

Richmond is a partner of World Wildlife Fund Australia, and the Tiger players placed food in the tiger exhibit (while the animal itself was contained, of course. The last thing the overworked Richmond medical team needed was any more injuries to deal with).

Richmond is in hot form and coming off five consecutive wins, the most recent of which was a comprehensive 32-point victory over Collingwood.

"We've been in pretty good form, we've got a lot of boys back as well. It felt good Friday night, and it was good to get the win," Vlastuin said.

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"We've got another couple of big games coming up (including against fellow top-four sides West Coast and Brisbane), so after that we'll be able to really tell where we are. It's reward for effort, I suppose."

Cotchin aside, Richmond's injury list is shortening by the week after hitting a critical mass of 14 players – including senior players Jack Riewoldt, Shane Edwards, David Astbury, Toby Nankervis, Kane Lambert and Alex Rance – just before the bye.

With only Cotchin, Nankervis and Rance currently missing from the Tigers' best 22, Vlastuin sounded a warning to the rest of the competition.

"We felt like we had to just hold on early in the year, just win a game here or there and not fall out too much with the [top] eight," he said.

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"Now we've got all the boys back, we're playing some good footy and we can launch into September and hopefully all those boys are pretty fresh because they haven't played too much footy."

Rance has missed the entire season after rupturing his ACL in round one. Despite being well ahead of schedule in his recovery, the star defender is unlikely to feature again this year.

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Western Bulldogs defender Dale Morris is a cautionary tale, re-rupturing his ACL over the weekend after returning from a partial tear suffered earlier in the year.

"Alex is such a great player, I'm backing the club to make the right call. Players will always put up their hand, they always want to play, you never want to be told you don't [get] to play," Vlastuin said.

"'Rancey' would be putting up his hand, but the club will have those conversations. He'll be seeing the surgeon every couple of weeks to see where it's at, but with these things you can never guarantee the graft is going to hold.

"He could come back and do it first game, or he could have another 12 months off, or he could do it round one next year, you never know until it happens."