Richmond coach Damien Hardwick believes the Tigers’ new VFL team is a significant stepping stone on the Club’s path to sustained success.

“It’s very exciting.  We get to develop and control the destiny of our players,” Hardwick said at the official launch of Richmond’s VFL side at the ME Bank Centre last Friday.

“The other thing is we want to win.  We want those boys to experience what our guys did last season, and to play regular finals footy . . .

“The board have been outstanding in providing the funding to give us additional coaches and other resources.

“We’ve got to get these players up to speed relatively quickly.  We’re expecting guys to come in and make an impact at AFL level, so we want to implement the same systems and procedures from an AFL perspective at a VFL level.

“Previously, as hard as we did try with the Coburg affiliation, it was never going to work.  We didn’t have enough resources to get that result.

“It’s been an outstanding achievement thus far to be able to resource this department with 3-4 administration staff and 4-5 coaches as well.

“We think it’s going to put us well on the way to where we want to be.”