Richmond coach Damien Hardwick believes the stakes are beginning to get desperate for the reigning premiers after its winless run to the restarted season continued on Saturday.

After a low-scoring draw to Collingwood to resume the interrupted campaign, Richmond has now suffered back-to-back defeats against Hawthorn and St Kilda to sit out of the finals equation after four weeks.

"Absolutely it is (desperate)," Hardwick said.

"The season is shortened, we understand that. Every win is incredibly valuable, especially early in the season.

"We've got to start getting some ‘W’s in our column."

The Tigers now face a five day break before playing West Coast at the Gold Coast hub in round five.

"You look at all three phases of the game we didn't perform particularly well," Hardwick said of the loss to the Saints. "We are not playing a Richmond-style game at the moment.

"A weight of numbers of our better performing players [are] not playing well enough.

"I wouldn't say there is a degree of flatness, our players played with enough energy. We didn't handle St Kilda's pressure around the ball well.

"We have been in this situation before. We have dug ourselves out of it, but we have got some work to do. We are certainly well off the pace."

Richmond were hurt badly by ill-discipline that led directly to goals at crucial stages of the game.

"It was really disappointing, especially the things we can control," Hardwick said.

"We will deal with that this week but they're the things that are incredibly disappointing - work incredibly hard to get yourself back in the game and then give away two cheap goals in the third. We got to get better.

"That's on us."