Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has pledged to keep fielding his strongest possible team during the remainder of the season, as the club deals with a dramatic fall in its attendances as it has slid down the ladder.

Six days after a crowd of just 22,074 saw the Tigers go down to Fremantle at the MCG, only 34,633 turned up at the same venue to see their scrappy 11-point loss to the Sydney Swans on Friday night.

After playing finals last year, Richmond is mired in 15th place on the ladder with just three wins, and is 1-7 in its past eight games, its sole victory in that period a 113-point win over Greater Western Sydney.

"At the end of the day, if you put in a 3-10 season you're not going to get crowds," Hardwick said after the loss to the Swans, which came after the Tigers were 26 points up midway though the second quarter.

"We've got to make sure we start winning some games to get people back.

"We like to think we play an exciting brand of footy. Tonight was probably a war of attrition more so than anything else, but we've got to make sure we do ourselves a favour and win some games."

Although Richmond is out of finals calculations, Hardwick won't be blooding youngsters for the sake of it, nor will he be sending players off for season-ending surgery just so they can be fit for summer training.

"We'll still be out to win games," he said. "We're a better side than 3-10. The record would say otherwise, but we're playing some footy at the moment that's going to knock some sides off.

"So we'll just get the best sides to play. We won't be packing up anyone.

"We'll just continue to try and win footy games, because we owe it to our supporters, we owe it to our members, to make sure we keep going.

"Because we're well short of where we need to be, and we want to make sure we earn the respect back of that group."