RICHMOND is looking to confirm its status as one of the League's better travelling teams when it takes on the Sydney Swans on Friday night at the SCG.
The Tigers have been successful on three of their four road trips this season, the highlight being their dominant performance in Perth that put an end to Fremantle's unbeaten run.
Coach Damien Hardwick said his players were up for a similarly daunting challenge with the Swans sitting third on the ladder with a 9-2 record going into round 13.
"We're certainly up for it - we feel we travel well," Hardwick said on Thursday.
"We've got a reasonable record against the Swans over the previous times we've played up there so we're looking forward to the challenge."
Former skipper Chris Newman, who hasn't played since round six, was on the flight to Sydney and looks set to return to the side.
Hardwick has shown a willingness to play tall forwards Jack Riewoldt, Ben Griffiths and Ty Vickery in the same attack this season and he sees no reason to leave out one of his big men given the smaller dimensions of the SCG.
"They're all different in the way that they play," Hardwick said.
"We're quite capable of playing Jack and Griff up the ground and Ty as well at various stages.
"They cover the ground well for bigger players.
"But the big thing about this is we've got to make sure that we kick some goals at ground level.
"We were disappointed in that facet of our game last week (in the loss to West Coast). We couldn't manufacture a goal."
The last time these two sides played was back in round 23 last season when the barnstorming Tigers scored an upset win over the ladder-leading Swans - their ninth in a row - to confirm their spot in the finals.
Hardwick said that a lot had changed since then but said his players would take some confidence from the stunning three-point victory at ANZ Stadium.
Richmond will need to curb the influence of Swans' tall targets Kurt Tippett and Lance Franklin, which Hardwick said would require a defensive effort from the entire team.
"Probably the mistake sides make is Sydney don't overly take a lot of marks inside 50 but they're incredible at ground level," he said.
"You even look at guys like Tippett and Franklin - from a marking point-of-view they're reasonably consistent - but they're very dangerous at ground level also.
"We've just got to make sure that we bring our 'A-game', we get numbers back there to help those players to get the ball back out."
A duel between Alex Rance and Franklin is a tantalising prospect, but while Hardwick agreed Rance had done well on the Swans superstar before, he stopped short of declaring it his preferred match-up.
