RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick has heralded his team's "fantastic" win over Hawthorn and says it stemmed from the leadership of captain Chris Newman and his deputies.

The Tigers have had a few near misses this season with a 19-point loss to Essendon last week and 10-point defeats by Geelong and West Coast previously.

But Hardwick said the leaders of the club had ensured the players believed they were capable of taking the next step and securing wins, which was shown when they beat the Sydney Swans in round seven and on Saturday at the MCG.

"To beat Sydney three weeks ago, and Hawthorn today is enormous from our point of view," Hardwick said, after the 62-point win.

"It is always an area of concern, to put in those performances but come up short, but I think the belief of Chris Newman and his leadership group has really driven that hard, that 'listen, we know we're a good side, we've just got to wait for the chances and capitalise on those,' and I thought we did that today.

"It's a real testament to Chris and Nathan [Foley] and all these types of players that have been round the club for a while."

He also said he believed his players were mature enough not to get carried away with the recent wins over top eight fancies.

"We still mentioned that at the end of the game. We haven't achieved anything yet," he said.

"We're still well short of where we want to go, we're still behind the ledger.

"All we've got to worry about is what happens inside our four walls at Punt Road.

"People can talk it up as much as they like but it's one win and it's a long season, so we're still well short of where we need to be."

Still, Hardwick said he now knew they would "compete, be tough and be hard" each week.

"A lot of the responsibility has pushed back on to the players, they do all the things we require them to do, there's not as many of the mistakes," he said.

"They're still there but we probably make more in the coach's box than they do on the ground, which is pleasing."

The Tigers won the contested possessions 168 to 137 and the clearances by one (41 to 40).

Hardwick was pleased with the way the Tigers "hunted the ball" and won in such a convincing fashion, especially when the backline was hit by the late withdrawal of Jake Batchelor (rolled ankle).

With Dylan Grimes out, the loss of Batchelor with the one-week injury could have seen the Tigers unravel against the Hawks' forwards.

But Alex Rance stood tall against Lance Franklin, Steven Morris did a terrific job on Cyril Rioli, Matthew Dea was important and Ben Griffiths - in his 10th senior game - was impressive after starting on Jarryd Roughead.

"We were slightly concerned coming in. Griffiths, we think has the ability to play, he just hasn't played a lot of footy, but I thought he was fantastic and it's a starting point for him," Hardwick said.

"We're starting to build a nice little niche down there with the sort of players we want to play through that back end, which is great."

Jack Riewoldt broke through for six goals - the most he's kicked since round one last year - and took seven marks, two of which were contested.

Hardwick said it was pleasing to see Riewoldt "move around and get active", while Jake King said the performance would do the key forward the world of good.

"That's a massive boost for Jack. We had a chat and he needed to stand up as a leader and he did, and took a couple of contested marks when the ball was wet," King told AFL.com.au.

"We couldn't have asked for more from Jack today. His tackles were up, his chasing was really good and we're all really proud of the big fella."

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs.

Jennifer Witham is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenWitham.