RICHMOND tall Graham Polak made an encouraging return to senior-level football in the scratch match at Gosch’s Paddock on Thursday.

The 24-year-old is recovering from a brain injury resulting from a collision with a tram midway through last year, and is slowly regaining his touch and fitness.

Richmond assistant coach Brian Royal said after the match that the club was thrilled with Polak’s progress.

“Today was a really important step in Graham’s rehabilitation,” Royal said.

“Graham’s slowly increasing the amount of training he’s doing, and also the intensity level that he’s training at, and today was an important part of that.

“It was clear fairly early that his touch was off, but what you’ve got to understand is that Graham’s had some fairly serious head injuries.

“His touch has got a long way to go, and he gets tired easily, so the longer the game or the quarters go, he gets more tired.

“But it was important for him to play in a competitive situation for him to find out where he’s at.

“He’s still a long way off, so we’re not expecting anything in the first part of the season.”

Royal said it was a huge morale boost for the club to see him out there.

“Oh, it’s fantastic – we’ve been quite amazed that he’s got to this level, this quickly.

“It’s been a credit to him, and certainly the fitness staff and the rehabilitation staff from the Epworth hospital (who cleared him to play).

“We’ve had plans in place, but the plans at times get thrown out the window.

“We’ve had parts of games at training – he’s been playing for 15 minutes, we’ll then up it to 20, today I think we probably upped it to 40 minutes.

“It’s just an ongoing process.”