RICHMOND'S ailing defensive stocks have taken another hit with Bachar Houli set for a second week on the sidelines.

Houli missed the Tigers' loss to Collingwood with a minor hamstring strain and has already been ruled out of Saturday's match against Greater Western Sydney at Giants Stadium.

First-choice defenders Dylan Grimes (one-week suspension) and Alex Rance (knee reconstruction) are also unavailable, with Ryan Garthwaite a chance to come into the senior side for just his third AFL game.

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"He (Houli) missed last week and he's progressing slowly but it's not moving as quickly as we'd like, so he's probably going to miss this week as well," Richmond physical performance manager Peter Burge told the club website.

"We'll be more confident going into full training next week and hopefully for the Port Adelaide game he'll be back.

"Given Bachar's recent history – he had a couple of niggles last year – we just want to make sure that when he comes back, he'll be right to go."

In better news for the Tigers, strong forward Josh Caddy is expected to play his first game for the year after dealing with an ankle injury.

"Josh is going really well, he's been back training with the group now for a week," Burge said.

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"We'll look at him playing some game time this weekend, whether that's AFL or VFL, we'll make that call later in the week. But he's been really good.

"Initially he had those three weeks off where he didn't run at all, so it's been a slow progression, but the last couple of weeks has been really promising and we look forward to seeing him play this weekend."

Jack Riewoldt (wrist) will be on the sidelines for around a month and will be restricted to running this week.

Burge said Rance's knee reconstruction went "fantastically" well and he can now straighten his leg, while midfielder Shaun Grigg (knee) has started to build his training loads but is still a number of weeks away.

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