The tactical battle between close friends and rival coaches, Damien Hardwick and Alastair Clarkson, is set to be a fascinating feature of the Richmond v Hawthorn qualifying final.

They might know each other well, but Hardwick said there was no predicting exactly what the Hawks would throw up on Thursday night.

“We're under no illusions we're certainly going to have a set of circumstances that are going to present themselves that are going to be a little bit different,” he said.

“That's why he's such a great coach.

“I can't answer for him, but 80 per cent of what Hawthorn do, we're probably going to know – 20 per cent is always the unknown.

“We can prepare for the 20, or we can prepare for the 80 . . . I think we'll just prepare for the 80 and we'll deal with the 20.

“We certainly believe that our process is pretty strong. Once again, if we back ourselves in with what we do, we're going to be really hard to beat.”

The Tigers are top of the table, when it comes to intercept possessions, but are narrowly second last to St Kilda in clearances.

Hardwick said they had made a point over the past two weeks of managing the way they approached the stoppages after identifying a key reason why they're so lowly ranked in that area.

“We're AFL 18th for free kicks. The reality is, we're giving away a lot of free kicks at stoppages and that's why we're losing them,” he said.

“We've just got to be a little bit more careful with our aggression around the ball, and that way the ball will start going our way.

“We're certainly aware of that. Our game is a turnover game, we acknowledge that, we accept that, and most sides know that.

“Once again, the way we set the game up will be certainly turnover-based – most scores in the AFL are off turnover, not clearance, so we'll continue to play the percentages in that.”