Richmond's win was made more meritorious given they were down to two players on the bench for most of the game after key forward Jack Riewoldt was concussed five minutes into the contest and Bachar Houli hurt his groin in the opening quarter.
Hardwick said Houli would likely miss next week's Dreamtime at the 'G clash with Essendon, and that Riewoldt was in good spirits after the win despite the head knock.
"He's fine, he's up and about. How it turns out from here I'm not too sure, we'll go through the correct protocol. Our doctors made a pretty quick decision that he didn't look right, so he was ruled out pretty quickly," he said.
The premiers looked to rejig their forward set-up in Riewoldt's absence, using Josh Caddy as more of a marking target, having third-gamer Callum Moore take on more responsibility and sending Nick Vlastuin into attack.
All ideas worked, as Caddy kicked a career-high six goals, Vlastuin chipped in with three and Moore took six marks in an encouraging display.
"We just tried to figure out who could play and pinch-hit as that second part-time forward. I thought Caddy fulfilled that role pretty well, Dusty at stages and then we had the added bonus of throwing Nick Vlastuin forward as well. Once again, I thought the boys in the box did a really good job of getting it organised," he said.
Source: AFL website
