Richmond captain Trent Cotchin has praised the elite defensive efforts of the team’s small forwards in last Saturday night’s win against Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium.

Minus the services of star key forward Jack Riewoldt, who was sidelined with an eye injury, the Tigers’ ‘mosquito fleet’ (Rioli, Castagna, Butler, Bolton, Edwards and Lambert) found a way to compensate.

They upped the ante in the pressure stakes, applying a record 27 tackles inside Richmond’s forward 50.

“With those ‘smalls’, that’s what you expect for them to bring . . . their strengths to the game. That’s one of them,” Cotchin told ‘Channel Nine’.

“The other’s kicking goals, or at least creating them.

“Credit to the guys down there.

“I think both ‘Cads’ (Josh Caddy) and ‘Nanks’ (Toby Nankervis) provided a fantastic contest for us going into our forward-50 as well . . .

“A great strength of our group at the moment is that we’re willing to play a role for each other and for our team.

“There are 22 soldiers out there doing what they need to do to, hopefully, get the end result going our way.”