RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick summed up his team's scrappy win over Melbourne when, as he was leaving his press conference, he quipped, "Sorry for the game today, you blokes."

The Tigers' 23-point victory, in which they booted a wayward 13.23, was indeed a tortuous affair.

But Hardwick was far from despondent with his team's seventh win of the season, which came three days after the club parted ways with Dan Connors and slapped a two-week suspension on emerging star Dustin Martin.

Four other regular senior players were also forced to miss the clash with the Demons due to injuries and suspensions.

"It's not often you make seven changes to a footy side and probably get the result you were after, so we're just pleased to walk away with the four points," Hardwick said.

"I think it just shows we've probably matured as a footy club. We spoke about it during the week, that it was a tough call to make but the right one.

"We don't change our stance, and I think as a footy club we've become more resilient and become better as a result."

Richmond captain Chris Newman was also proud of the way his teammates stood up after a trying few days.

"The leadership group … made sure that we were still upbeat," he said.

"To the boys' credit they were really good; they handled it really well.

"It's a really tough thing to see their teammates and their mates go through what they had during the week."

The Tigers dominated most of the key statistical areas.

They had 21 more inside-50s than the Demons and won the clearance-count 44 to 25.

But they also committed a stack of skill errors.

"We bring all those players in, guys who haven't played in the team for quite some time, and they didn't quite gel," Hardwick said.

"We just couldn't finish our work, and … it's been a common trend in the last couple of weeks - more behinds than goals.

"We were probably a bit wide at stages, but then there were some easy, gettable shots and probably a couple that we thought were goals that weren't."

With Ty Vickery out for the rest of the season due to a shoulder injury, Richmond continues to search for another tall forward to take some pressure of Jack Riewoldt.

Having dropped Todd Elton after one game, the Tigers this time started another debutant, Tom Derickx, in attack.

Derickx, a 201cm giant, won six possessions and 11 hit-outs while alternating between the forward line and the ruck.

"He competed well," Hardwick said. "He's certainly going to get better for the experience.

"We've got to find a big second target. Obviously Ty was that, but with the shoulder not coming up, we've got to find a guy that can compete.

"Probably the other positive today was [that] Lukey McGuane really, really competed well.

"He could quite easily have finished with three to four goals, but he kicked two, missed one he should've got and I think the other one he tried to handball to Jack.

"The good thing about Luke and Tommy is they bring a competitive instinct to the forward half."

The two worries for the Tigers are Matt White's high bump on Melbourne full-back James Frawley late in the last quarter, which is sure to be scrutinised by the match review panel, and key defender Ben Griffiths' calf problem.

Griffiths was subbed out of the game during the third quarter.

"He did pull up a little bit tight," Hardwick said. "We think he's going to be okay.

"We just didn't take any risks. He's had a wretched run with injuries, so as soon as they said he was getting a rub on his calf we just said, 'Let's pack him up.'"

Richmond travels to Cairns next weekend to play a 'home' game against Gold Coast.

"We went up there last year and Gold Coast rolled us, so there's a bit of fire in the belly for us to really go up there and prove that we can play away from home," Riewoldt told AFL.com.au.

"They've got so much young talent up there they can pull anything out of the bag.

"So we're going to have to be right on our A-game, and hopefully we can come away with the same result we did today."