Hardwick's belief hasn't been shaken by Tigers' poor startRonny Lerner
The Age
14 April 2016Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has denied his belief has been shaken by the Tigers' poor start to the season.
Hardwick's side entered 2016 amid much hope and expectation following on from three consecutive finals campaigns which ended at the first hurdle.
The Tigers only have an uninspiring nine-point win against lowly Carlton to show for their first three matches this year.
But Hardwick maintained full faith in his players who have recovered from similar ruts before.
"When you think about it, we lose a game in the last five seconds [against Collingwood] and we could be sitting here 2-1 but unfortunately we're not, we're 1-2 so we've got to get ourselves out of a hole," Hardwick said at Melbourne Airport on Thursday.
"We're still incredibly confident in the playing group we've got, we've reinvigorated the group with some young talent coming through but we're really excited by what we'll be able to put forward.
"We're only three games in, it's a very small sample size that people are making a lot of assumptions over.
"They're a resilient bunch our boys, they've been in positions like this before, we're not quite playing our best but we're a good enough side to dig our way out of it."
Hardwick drew confidence from the fact that Richmond bounced back from 3-3, 3-10 and 2-4 starts in the last three years to feature in the finals.
"Our backs are up against it at the moment but we're pretty confident our best footy is not too far away," he said.
The Richmond boss, who recently signed a two-year contract extension with the club, drew criticism this week for saying his team might have to take half a step backwards in order to go two steps forward in their development in a season where the club had high hopes of playing finals.
But Hardwick clarified his comments, stating he needed to find the team's next tier of players following on from the retirements of many experienced players at the end of last season
"We've injected five or six first- or second-year players into our side," Hardwick said.
"We're still incredibly confident with the players we've got and how far we can go this year but it is going to take a little bit of time for those players to gel ... they're not all clicking at the same time.
"Regeneration happens within AFL cycles all the time and we're probably in that period now where we're getting an opportunity for those players to play."
Hardwick described beating West Coast in Perth as an "enormous test" but another thing going in the Tigers' favour is that they have the best record (3-1) of any visiting team at Domain Stadium since 2013.
"It's a ground that we do tend to play well at. Whatever reason that is, I'm not exactly sure," he said.
Richmond ruckman Shaun Hampson has been tasked with one of the toughest jobs in footy – containing West Coast excitement machine Nic Naitanui.
Hampson has been thrust into the role as 'Nic Nat negator' after Tigers No.1 ruckman Ivan Maric was left out for the fourth consecutive week.
A five-day turnaround from Richmond's VFL match to Friday night's encounter with West Coast at Domain Stadium ultimately counted against Maric.
Hardwick had total faith in Hampson to do a good job against Naitanui.
"He's had a very good last couple of games, we've been really impressed with the way he's played," Hardwick said of Hampson.
"Ivan will play in the VFL this week, get another game under his belt because he hasn't played a lot of footy but he's an important player for us so we'll look to welcome him back at some stage."
Hardwick was also bullish of Brett Deledio's prospects of returning from a quad injury against Melbourne next round.
"We're very confident it's turned the corner," he said.
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