In the wake of Dustin Martin’s brilliant opening round performance against Carlton, the talk throughout the AFL football world all week, had been how opposition teams could negate the substantial influence of the Richmond champion.

Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson took a novel approach by deploying his 38-year-old, 391-game veteran star Shaun Burgoyne in a stopping role on Martin in this afternoon’s Round 2 clash at the MCG.

That move certainly surprised Clarkson’s Tigers counterpart Damien Hardwick, but it didn’t faze Martin, who finished with 28 disposals, seven marks, one goal and 11 score involvements in another dominant display.

“It was interesting at the start,” Hardwick said.

“They had him (Burgoyne on Martin) and Liam Shiels started at half-back as well, so it was an interesting tactic. We didn't see it coming, obviously. But I thought Dustin was terrific, once again.

“He had a number of score involvements and gave off a couple of goals where we'd probably prefer him to have a shot next time, so that's a coffee shout. But I thought he had a great game.

“Shaun is such a terrific competitor. You don't want to allow him to roam free, but it was a good match-up.”

Hardwick, overall, was pleased with Richmond’s 29-point win.

“There’s a lot of things to like,” he said.

“I thought we moved the ball pretty well, we just couldn’t quite get that last possession inside 50, which has been a common occurrence of ours early in the season.

“It gets better as the season progresses and, hopefully, we can take a few steps forward in that regard next week.

“We’ve got some areas of our game that we can certainly improve, but to walk away with a win against a really improving side such as Hawthorn . . . They’re always dangerous this time of year, they’re well coached, they’re well drilled, got some good, young players coming through. So, we walk away happy with the win.”