They love to jeer a villain in the west, and nearly 12 months since he won infamy with the Eagles faithful there's still probably none bigger than Richmond key forward Ty Vickery.

The Tigers' round-18 clash with the Eagles last year was, of course, the evening Vickery had something of a brain explosion, snotting local hero Dean Cox at a boundary throw-in.

It was crude, unnecessary and had consequences both immediate and longer-term, with a couple of West Coast fans wanting to take Vickery on when he ran to the interchange bench and the AFL tribunal a few days later slapping him with a four-game suspension.

The chastened Tiger had, by then, already issued a public apology to the Eagle veteran.

That suspension was costly indeed for Vickery. By the time he was eligible again, Richmond were on a major roll. Not only was he overlooked for the crucial final-round clash with Sydney, he missed out again when the Tigers lined up for their elimination final against Port Adelaide.

Indeed, Friday night's return bout with West Coast will be only his fifth AFL game since the Cox incident. But Vickery comes into it with popular opinion about his status at Tigerland having swung again – as it so often seems to, within the wider football world and particularly among the Richmond faithful.

"I think our fans are probably a little bit unfair on Ty," says Richmond coach Damien Hardwick. "He carries a huge burden for some unknown reason. I'm not sure why that is, but I also know how important he is as a player and how much he means to our team."

Sometimes you wonder if Hardwick even believes that himself.

After missing out on those final two games last year – despite a pre-season about which senior teammates spoke in glowing terms, and after the coach had enthused about a three-tall attack featuring Vickery, Jack Riewoldt and Ben Griffiths – Vickery was still missing when this year began.

Then a minor knee injury sustained in a VFL practice match cost him another week. He finally returned to senior football in round five against Geelong. It wasn't one of the great comebacks, Vickery towelled up by Jared Rivers. But Hardwick publicly stood by his man after the Tigers' loss, declaring Vickery was a "best-22" player. Five days later, he was dropped.

"I've got to admit, I'm incredibly hard on him," Hardwick says. "But that's because I feel he can be a very good talent within the AFL system. So I do ride him incredibly hard. But I feel the dividend of that is going to be enormous if we get Ty playing the style of footy I know he can play."

Not that we haven't already seen glimpses of it. Vickery booted 36 goals at nearly two per game in 2011. In fact, since the start of that season he has kicked exactly 100 in 68 games at an average of 1½.

And just maybe we're starting to see it again. After his recent omission, Vickery returned to the line-up for the round-seven clash with Collingwood, the first of Richmond's four straight wins, managing three goals in a team total of 16.

Another knee injury forced him off early against Port Adelaide the next week and out of the side to play Essendon. But in the big win over Fremantle in Perth last week Vickery kicked another three and dragged down half-a-dozen good grabs.

Significantly, that was also the first full game all season that Vickery, Griffiths – who also missed a couple of games injured – and Riewoldt had spent on the same ground. And the Tigers' attack looked a lot more potent for it.

"You get three different looks," says Hardwick. "You get Jack, who is a mobile, smaller marking key, and Benny, who is an athletic tall, then Ty, who is just a beacon up there. It's exactly what we're after.

"Ty hasn't got the athleticism of the other two, but what he has got is the smarts. He's capable of regularly kicking three a game."

And while Hardwick might not be easily satisfied, he's starting to see the signs.

"It's in his ability to make contest after contest," he says. "At stages last year, I thought he probably wasn't working as hard as we knew he could. But he's doing that a lot more. He's winning or halving contests, and at his best he's really hard to play on. He makes defenders worry about where he is, and I think we're starting to see that."

Vickery is second only to Riewoldt for scoreboard impact at Richmond over the past five seasons and his output, unlike that of plenty of teammates, has remained relatively constant in wins and losses.

But as he approaches the 100-game milestone, his coach is convinced the best is still to come.

"It's hard to think of an equivalent player like that," Hardwick says. "But [former Essendon and Hawthorn star] Paul Salmon is a guy who springs to mind for me, a guy capable of playing out of the cage deep inside 50 and kicking 40 goals, which Ty's already done, but then also have the ability to play as a roaming ruckman, as 'Fish' did, once he matures and grows into his body.

"He's just turned 25, but I still think he's going to fill out more and get bigger."

But for all the tough talk and the tough line Hardwick takes on his charge, the fondness for him is also readily apparent. Vickery is "a different sort of guy", says the coach, "but one I really enjoy spending time around".

"He's really intelligent and engaging," Hardwick says. "What I like is that when we do a game review, he's the first one to ask a question. If he doesn't agree with something that I've written in his review, he'll be the first one to challenge me, which I really enjoy. It shows that he cares about his performance."

It's fair to say that thumbnail sketch of a smart and sensitive young man isn't quite the impression Vickery has inspired among West Coast fans. But on Friday night, as they take another look at the man they've viewed with distaste since last July, it's a good chance for the big Tiger to show them his football is also far from one-dimensional.