Nathan Brown, the player whose AFL career has been most closely linked to outgoing Richmond coach Terry Wallace, will miss his mentor's final game in charge.

A groin injury has forced Brown out of Wallace's swansong against the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Friday night.

Brown made his debut with the Bulldogs in 1997, Wallace's first full season coaching the club.

The star forward then moved to Richmond for the 2004 season, Wallace resuming his coaching career at Tigerland at the end of that season after his bitter split with the Bulldogs two years earlier.

The Tigers also lost small forward Robin Nahas, one of the success stories of Wallace's final season in charge, and fellow little man Matthew White to injury.

But first-year defender Alex Rance, midfielder Mark Coughlan and Jordan McMahon, another former Bulldog who started his career under Wallace, have returned to the side.

McMahon will be one of seven players in the match who Wallace gave debuts to at the Bulldogs during his six-and-a-half seasons in charge there from 1996 to 2002.

The other six have all become vital cogs in the Bulldogs' 22 - Robert Murphy, Brian Lake, Daniel Cross, Daniel Giansiracusa, Lindsay Gilbee and Ryan Hargrave, who will celebrate his 150-game milestone.

Another long-time Bulldog, Nathan Eagleton, was brought to the club by Wallace from Port Adelaide in 2000.

But Bulldogs star Jason Akermanis said there was no desire within the club to give Wallace a happy send-off.

"I only hear what happened when he left, I wasn't around then," Akermanis told Nova FM of the nature of Wallace's sudden parting with the club, for which the coach apologised this week.

"But there's certainly a great deal of hatred between the two clubs and maybe that's all helped it."

Fourteen of the Tigers' 22 have never played under another AFL coach, while Wallace brought three more - McMahon, Ben Cousins and Mitch Morton - to Tigerland.

While a Richmond loss would bring a dismal end to Wallace's career, a win would also be slightly bitter-sweet.

The Tigers showed promising form in last weekend's three-point win over Fremantle at Subiaco and it would be unfortunate timing for the coach if they finally strung consecutive wins together once his fate was sealed.

Significantly, Cousins and exciting young midfielder Trent Cotchin had their best performances of the season against the Dockers, finally hitting their straps after being sidelined by injury during the early part of the season.

Wallace has bemoaned the absence of that duo as one of the key factors in the poor early season results which guaranteed his downfall.

The Bulldogs will be desperate not to let the emotion of Wallace's departure fuel an upset Richmond victory which would interrupt their building momentum.

The Dogs followed a desperately narrow loss to Geelong in round nine by an impressive thumping of Sydney at Manuka Oval last weekend.

They made one change, Robert Murphy returning from injury to replace suspended fellow forward Scott Welsh.

Interestingly, Wallace failed to front for what would have been his final training session at Punt Road on Thursday, with his assistants - one of whom will take over as caretaker coach after Friday night's game - instead taking charge.

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