RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick has labelled his team "very mediocre" after its capitulation against Essendon in the Dreamtime match at the MCG on Saturday night.

Hardwick was furious after the 50-point loss, which all but eliminated the Tigers from finals contention.


He could be heard blasting his men with a paint-peeling spray that included plenty of colourful language.

"When you dish up that sort of performance, it's to be expected," HArdwick said when he calmly faced the media half-an-hour after addressing the players.

"You get belted in contested ball, you get belted in tackles, you're a fair chance to expect a spray at the end of the game.

"Every now and then you give one, mate. Like I said, the performance validated it."


The spray came less than two weeks after Hardwick was told by his players, during a willing feedback session, that he should be harder on them.

During the dressing down, the coach could be heard chastising his men for not putting more pressure on their opponents.

"You give up 125 uncontested marks, there is a chance that at some stage you'd expect to man up," Hardwick said.

"And then to get belted in contested ball through the middle of the ground by I think minus-25, you're never going to win a footy game.

"I thought they out-hunted us around packs, around scrimmages. They had two or three (players) to our one on a number of occasions, and they managed to get the ball out.

"It probably is work-rate. Offensively, Essendon uses the ball very well, don't get me wrong. But I thought our accountability was poor.

"We couldn't manufacture the even numbers across the field, which is really disappointing.

"We're just really disappointed in the performance that we put out there tonight. We're a very mediocre football side at the moment. Very mediocre."

Hardwick admitted he was enduring his "most challenging period" since taking over as Richmond's senior coach for the 2010 season.

And during the loss to the Bombers, he was repeatedly left bewildered at some of the skill errors that his team made.

None was worse than the shanked kick across goal from defender Alex Rance in the third quarter that allowed Ben Howlett to boot Essendon's 11th major.

"It was circa-2010 all over again," Hardwick said. "It was disappointing. Alex is a better player than that. He knows that, I know that.

"There are mistakes we're making that are really poor. From coughing up the ball, to kicking the ball away, handballing the ball away. Just mistakes we shouldn't be making.

"Unfortunately, at the moment, it's a reflection on me and my coaching staff. We have to get that better and the players have to accept some responsibility also.  

"But we're all in it together. We just have to make sure we work our backsides off."

Having slumped to 3-7, the Tigers are almost certain to be on holidays in September. But Hardwick isn’t about to dump half the senior team and start a rebuilding process.

"We're still trying to win as many games as we can," he said. "That's our aim as a footy club, and we'll continue to do that.

"We've got some players that we think can add some value going forward, so we'll continue to play those guys and make sure we get them better.

"At the end of the day, we owe it to our footy club to put the best side out there possible and get some wins on the board.

"We need to start winning some games, not so much from a making finals point of view, but just actually getting some respectability back in our footy club."