Richmond coach Damien Hardwick believes the Tigers’ heartbreaking two-point loss to Brisbane in last night’s elimination final at the Gabba epitomised their season.
“We were in the fight every game. I think we play a style of game that allows us to do that. But the fact of the matter is the things that haunted throughout the year, haunted us tonight. The fundamentals of the game, we just weren’t good enough for long enough,” Hardwick said.
“That’s as harsh a lesson of the game will teach us, unfortunately. You’ve just got to be good enough for a sustained period, and we weren’t tonight . . .
“We had some opportunities where, if we were a little bit cleaner, we would have been okay. And we just made some wrong decisions.
“Getting beaten by what you know really hurts. The players are hurting, our club is hurting, and our fans will certainly be hurting as well.
“But what I will say is I’m proud, because we’re always in the fight.”
Notwithstanding the bitter disappointment of last night’s loss, Hardwick is utterly upbeat about the Tigers’ prospects for next year and beyond.
“The brightest thing about Richmond, as far as I’m concerned, is its future,” he said.
“We had a number of players that played their first final that are going to take us a long way into the future, which is exciting. And they’ll learn from it. It’s a really, really tough lesson to learn, no question, but they’ll grow from the experience . . .
“We think we’ve got a really, really good squad of players that will forge forward. We’re not looking to rebuild, we’re looking to regenerate.
“We’ve got some other young kids . . . you’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. There are some young kids at the lower level that are really going to pop for us. So, we’re excited about those . . .
“It’s a disappointing season, I’m not going to lie. I feel we’re better than what the position we’re in is. But the fact of the matter is we are we’re we are. So, we’ll continue to build.
“We’re going to learn a hell of a lot from this year about what we need to do going forward.”
