While Collingwood is expected to come out breathing fire against Richmond on Friday night at the MCG, following its 80-point opening round loss to Sydney, the Tigers’ coach Damien Hardwick anticipates a similar response from his players, after they scraped through for a narrow victory over Carlton in the season-opener.

“It is really hard as a club, when you have a loss that you wouldn’t expect, and you’ve got to look in to rectify that.  But, in saying that, we were the same,” Hardwick said.

“We were lucky enough that we got the four points . . . Probably reviewed it as a loss, really.  We didn’t play anywhere near my level of expectation, or the team’s level of expectation. 

“So, while Collingwood are expected to come out and perform, so are we. 

“We were really disappointed with our performance last week . . .

“I thought our work-rate wasn’t good enough, our intensity to pattern run was poor, our ability to win contested ball was poor. 

“Those things, if they generally point in the wrong direction, you’re not going to win many games . . .

“So, we’re looking for an improved effort on all those fronts this week . . .

“We owe better to our fans, we owe better to ourselves. 

“We’ll make sure we come out playing a hell of a lot better this week.”