Richmond will ponder fielding a smaller forward line as they attempt to manoeuvre through possibly two AFL games without spearhead Tom Lynch.

The in-form key forward suffered a hamstring strain in Saturday’s win over Essendon and is set to miss games against Sydney and Port Adelaide, with the bye in between, before returning against Carlton.

Coach Damien Hardwick was contemplating whether to deploy a smaller forward line or to throw ruckman Ivan Soldo forward to support Jack Riewoldt against Sydney on Friday night.

“(Lynch has) got a strain. So he’ll be (back) after the bye at some stage. It’s probably more than likely the second game after the bye,” Hardwick said.

“It’ll probably more than likely be the Carlton game we think at this stage.”

Going small could on the cards, with Hardwick pointing to Carlton’s success in using Charlie Curnow as the sole big man against Sydney.

Hardwick flagged Sydney Stack, fresh off three goals in the VFL, Noah Cumberland and young tall Samson Ryan as potential options.

“It (our forward line structure) is a great question, one we’re still grappling with at the moment,” he said.

“We’ll have a good look at training today, what it looks like – whether Soldo plays more forward or we go a smaller-type forward line with a (Dustin) Martin (or Shai) Bolton-type also.

“We’ve got some options, we’ve just got to work our way through what’s going to give us the best opportunity to win this week against the Swans.

“It could be (a smaller forward line) and that’s what we’re working our way through.

“Pressure is certainly evident, we look at Carlton last week, they played a smaller-type forward line and it worked well for them. So they’ve given us a little bit of a template to look out for as well.”

Marlion Pickett and Jack Graham are poised to return but Kane Lambert will be sidelined until after the bye after being substituted due to his ongoing hip issue.