FIGURING out why it took until the last quarter to unleash its best football will dominate the early stages of Richmond's week, rather than dwelling on what might have been.

Coach Damien Hardwick was in a dark mood after watching Fremantle's David Mundy slot an after-the-siren winner to hand his Tigers a third loss in a row and second straight by under a goal.

Brandon Ellis gave Richmond the lead with 21 seconds to go – and sent the Tiger army into raptures – when he kicked its fifth unanswered major in the final term, before Mundy's clincher.

The Tigers' 5-0 start is now a distant memory, with Hardwick's side slumping to seventh spot off the two-point defeat, ahead of a trip to Spotless Stadium to face Greater Western Sydney on Saturday.

Richmond was unlucky not to be closer than the 30-point three-quarter time deficit, given Josh Caddy's goal on the siren was disallowed because of Jack Riewoldt's goal-line block on Joel Hamling.

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But Hardwick refused to contemplate hypotheticals, preferring to focus on his players' "pretty poor" first three quarters.

"I couldn't really tell (if the free kick was there). I think we see about 50 goal-line shepherds a game, don't we? Not many of them get paid," Hardwick said.

"But it's probably taking away from the result, really. Fremantle were by bar the better side today. If we had have stolen that game, it was probably a disservice to them, in theory.

"Once again, it's one of those sliding door things. We've got to play better than what we did today."

All Australian defender Alex Rance was the Tigers' sole standout for most of the day until Dustin Martin and Shaun Grigg lifted their ratings with excellent fourth-quarter showings.

An 18-4 inside-50 differential in the final term enabled Richmond to win that statistic 53-45, and it edged the Dockers in contested possessions (138-133), but was badly beaten on the outside.

Bradley Hill and Michael Walters contributed heavily to the visitors' 102 uncontested marks – a number that alarmed Hardwick – and uncontested possession dominance (269-220).

"It's very hard to have a player run with a guy like Brad Hill, who goes from one side of the ground to the other, and they give him the ball at every opportunity," Hardwick said.

"I thought our physicality on him wasn't quite to the level we spoke about before the game and Walters, I thought, had a game out of the blue."

Hardwick was disappointed with his players' intensity and hardness around the contest – in spite of winning the contested ball – but offered some faint praise for their torrid fightback.

"It was over to them, really, (in the last quarter)," he said.

"You throw a few magnets around, but particularly it comes down to your players and what sort of effort and exuberance they want to bring.

"To their credit, they fought their way back into the contest. They didn't get the result, obviously, but we can't play that style of footy.

"For three quarters, I thought we were well down on the way we should have and could have played."