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Richmond star Shane Edwards will make a welcome AFL return against Essendon while Damien Hardwick will ponder his ruck-forward mix going forward.

Richmond will welcome back triple-premiership gun Shane Edwards for their AFL clash with Essendon but face a big decision on their ruck-forward balance.

Edwards missed the past three games with an ankle injury but coach Damien Hardwick confirmed he will travel from Sydney to Perth for Saturday's Dreamtime game, which will be held at Optus Stadium for the first time amid Melbourne's coronavirus outbreak.

That news is counterbalanced by losing Toby Nankervis for several weeks after the triple-premiership ruckman suffered a PCL strain against Adelaide.

Ivan Soldo is out for the season as he recovers from an ACL injury - meaning the Tigers will need to turn to pinch-hitters or hand a debut to first-year ruck Samson Ryan.

Callum Coleman-Jones can play in the ruck but booted four goals against Adelaide and will be needed in attack amid Tom Lynch's absence.

Mabior Chol kicked two goals and had nine hitouts against the Crows - his first game of the season - and could play more ruck minutes, while Marlion Pickett will return from suspension and has done some pinch-hitting ruck work.

"We've got a couple of options - it's whether we go smaller in the ruck," Hardwick said.

"We're really excited by a young tall that we've got in Samson Ryan that will maybe get an opportunity as well."

The Tigers may be keen to refine their ruck-forward structure against Essendon's Andrew Phillips before facing West Coast's Nic Naitanui the following week.

Richmond are keen to persist with playing three tall forwards and a ruckman but also need to make calls with an eye to the future.

Coleman-Jones, 21, and Chol, 24, are both out of contract at season's end and are certain to attract interest from rivals clubs.

"We've always said that CJ's a really important part of our future, as is Mabior, but we're very lucky to have depth of quality key forwards," Hardwick said.

"We'd like to get that to try and work a little bit better moving forward and play possibly the three talls with the ruck.

"We're getting a really good opportunity to have a look at how that works now. It might take one step back to go two steps forward, but we think in the long term, it'll be a really good look for us because they can all play.

"Unfortunately we can't play them all, we've got to have a balance of our side of how that looks, but primarily we think it's a look we'll go with moving forward - the three talls and the ruck."