Richmond star Brett Deledio believes last Saturday’s loss to Carlton at the MCG has “come at a good time”.

The Tigers blitzed the Blues with an eight goal to three opening quarter, but managed just six more goals for the game in what turned out to be a 10-point defeat.

The previous week, they led Brisbane by 11 goals to four at half-time, only to see the Lions cut the margin to 23 points by final-siren time.

“Our first quarter against Carlton was probably some of the best footy I’ve seen us play.  But we certainly have taken our foot off the pedal,” Deledio told “Roar Vision”.

“Some of our defensive stuff, that we put up on the weekend, was really poor and quite embarrassing.

“The coach and coaching staff have pointed that out to us . . .

“You don’t like seeing that sort of stuff – no-one really does.

“But it was a good clip behind the ears coming into finals, to really make sure that we’re playing our best footy going in there, and not just scraping through.”

Deledio is confident the team can regroup and finish the season strongly.

“Most of the playing group’s pretty fit and healthy,” he said.

“We probably get Jakey King, Matty White, Shane Edwards and the old boy, ‘Newy’ (Chris Newman) back this week.

“It’ll be good to get those boys back because we probably lacked a bit of forward-half pressure last week.

“That was also cause through our poor ball movement . . .

“To get those boys back will be great, and we can really hone some of our defensive skills and our offensive ball movement going into the finals.”