RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick has expressed his frustration with the free kicks the Tigers — and especially spearhead Jack Riewoldt — have missed out on this season.

Richmond is 18th in the competition in regards to free kick differentials, and in their win over Essendon on Friday night, lost the free kick count 27 to 15.

Hardwick said he wasn’t annoyed with the free kicks his team gave away, but the non-calls they failed to receive, especially inside the forward 50.

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“I’ll leave that to other people I think, it was a frustrating night, there’s no doubt,” he told reporters post-match.

“Once again, it’s not the free kicks we give away, you know. The vast majority, the 80 per cent, are there. But it’s the ones we don’t get that probably I find a little bit frustrating.

“I look at Jack tonight and I thought ‘you know what, he doesn’t get much.’ And I look at the other end and I think ‘ooh, I wish he was playing for the other end.’ But anyway, it is what it is.”

The Coleman Medal leader had Michael Hurley for company all night, but frequently had to deal with second or third defenders coming across to assist the Essendon key back.

Riewoldt didn’t receive any free kicks against Essendon, and gave away three — two for pushes, and one for an unrealistic marking attempt over Hurley.

Hardwick said his frustration lay with the free kicks Riewoldt didn’t get given, especially in regards to holding and scragging from defenders.

“Just holding (Riewoldt). You know, once again it is a very, very hard game to adjudicate — the ball was played in our half early days,” Hardwick said.

“So Jack normally perseveres with it — he doesn’t complain, doesn’t blame — he just gets on with it and jumps at the ball.

“So it is what it is, not much we can do about it — we’ll just take it for what it is and hopefully get a better result next week.”

The Tigers did have positive news on the injury front, with Hardwick confirming captain Trent Cotchin, midfielder Dion Prestia and defender David Astbury were all set to return next week.

Meanwhile, Kane Lambert and Dan Butler are poised to return in the first week of finals.

Dion trained today, ran well, Cotch trained today, ran well and Dave the same, so those three will come back,” he said.

“Lambert will probably miss another one, I’d say … ‘Butts’ is probably a couple of weeks away as well.

“They’re on the mend those guys, I think they’ll be available for the first final at this stage, but those other three will be back next week.”

Jason Castagna spent time off the ground with a quad concern — which Hardwick said was a ‘corky’, while Dylan Grimes had running repairs throughout the game.

“George (Castagna) I think just had a corky, and … I’m not sure about Grimesy, I think he’s okay — I didn’t notice anything for Dylan,” Hardwick said.

“So I think we came through it with a reasonably clean bill of health, which is good.”