RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick says his young team's ability to hold off a surging St Kilda at Etihad Stadium on Friday night is a sign of its growing maturity.

The Tigers gave up a 20-point lead in the last quarter, but recovered to run out eight-point winners - a turnaround Hardwick said his players might not have been capable of 12 months ago.

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"I think now our guys have got that steely resolve and the mental resilience to get the game back on our terms and deliver the result we're after," Hardwick said.

"For our guys to overcome an experienced side and to get back in front … was a really good sign of a side that is improving, but still has a fair way to go in a number of areas.

"We probably didn't play to the level that we'd like tonight. Mainly that was due to the way St Kilda put pressure on us around the ball."

Richmond has five wins from 10 matches after a difficult opening to the season that has seen matches against all of last year's top eight.

The win over the Saints made it three wins against those teams, joining last week's 62-point thumping of Hawthorn and the round seven victory over the Sydney Swans.

Hardwick said the club had achieved some of the targets it set in the pre-season.

"We spoke about a standard of performance that we want to set - we want to challenge these guys - and we spoke about getting a couple of top-four scalps," he said.

"We've managed to knock over a couple and get close to another few, so we've come a fair way.

"We've still got a long way to go. There are some areas of the game that we can fix up to get us even better, so that's the exciting thing for us."

With matches against five teams currently sitting in the bottom half of the ladder in its next six games, including meetings with Melbourne, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney, Hardwick said the Tigers had to build on their momentum.

"The major thing for our guys now is belief," he said.

"The good thing is, we now know the required level to win these football games.

"The challenge for us as a group is to get the results that we should from here on in.

"We're a club that has battled hard, battled manfully, but now we've got to put some cream on the top and start winning the games we should certainly win."