Playing against his former AFL club St Kilda brought out the best in spirited Richmond forward Matthew Parker under the Marvel Stadium roof yesterday.

Parker, who had a 19-game career with the Saints from 2019-20 before joining the Tigers via last year’s AFL mid-season rookie draft, kicked three first-half goals in an electrifying display.

He finished the match with those three goals (an equal AFL career-high), 13 disposals in total, five marks, an equal team-high five inside-50s and four score involvements.

01:32

Latitude Player of the Match: Round 3

Backed by Latitude, the player of the match for Round 3 is Matthew Parker

Richmond coach Damien Hardwick praised Parker in his post-match press conference.

“He’s good, ‘Parks’. He wins the ball, he’s quite dynamic,” Hardwick said.

“He’s hard to play on, too, because he’s quite capable at ground level, but also quite explosive in the air.

07:39

Round 3: Hardwick post-match

Damien Hardwick addresses the media after the Round 3 match against St Kilda

“So, he’s playing some really good footy. There’s some things that he does very well, but also some areas of his game, like most players, that we’d like to get better. But he’s continually working on those.

“I thought he was a pretty good contributor again tonight, had a good game last week as well . . .

“We like what he brings.”