Hardwick labeled the 10-point victory the club's best of the season and "right up there" as one of its best under his guidance.
The four points gained from its success saw Richmond move into ninth position, behind the Crows on percentage.
The Tigers looked dead midway through the final term when, in front of a vocal 50,459-strong Adelaide crowd, the Crows booted four-straight goals to take the lead.
Hardwick's men somehow wrestled back control to finish with the last six scoring shots of the game.
"There's no better place to win than interstate on a side's home deck, hostile crowd – you're strong, you've got a group mentality when you're over here," Hardwick said.
"We'll enjoy the win, we'll build on it, but more importantly we've got a side in St Kilda next week that was really demoralized [on Saturday]…they're a smart football club that will bounce back.
"[We'll] take a lot of confidence out of it."
Hardwick insisted he never lost faith in his playing group, despite it sitting 15th after round 13.
Richmond hasn't dropped a game since that round's loss to Fremantle.
The coach said the return of key players from injury had helped his side's cause since, but that he had remained confident the side's best wasn't far away.
"We always knew that if we continued to work hard the wheel would turn," he said.
"We knew we weren't too far away. The win/loss column said we were, but we knew that if we continued to work hard with some things we put in place over the course of the summer all that would turn.
"I'm incredibly proud of our footy club the way they've battled against the odds to get us in a position to play [finals].
"We've just got to hope that we continue to win games to get that reward."
