Maybe Jack Riewoldt should play with Damien Hardwick's boot up his (expletive deleted) every week. Riewoldt shrugged off an eventful lead up to the game - where he questioned the team's gameplan and his coach responded with some blunt and colourful language - by blowing the game open with four first quarter goals, all from set shots, on the way to a career best 11. He ran rings around 20-year-old Aiden Corr, veteran Stephen Gilham and later Curtly Hampton.

Hammered by West Coast last time out to the tune of 111 points, GWS was expected to hit back hard against Richmond. With Shane Mumford, Jeremy Cameron, Adam Treloar and Hampton all back from injury, and the troops well rested from last week's bye, they were tipped by many to take it right up to the 16th-placed Tigers. But it was a no-contest from the opening bounce, with Richmond kicking 14 goals to half-time alone. A 2-1 start to the season is now a distant memory and the blowtorch will be applied to the third-year club, which had every reason to be competitive at home on Saturday, but ultimately was anything but.

It was a far cry from the wayward kicking of last week, when Richmond managed a wasteful 9.20 in the loss to Melbourne on Saturday afternoon. Led by an on-fire Riewoldt, the Tigers's first 12 scoring shots were goals, with Ty Vickery the one to break the streak 13 minutes into the second quarter. They finished with a season high 24.10.

Richmond's thumping win also kept them out of a small group of teams that have lost to both the GWS Giants and Gold Coast Suns. Melbourne and Port Adelaide are the only two teams that have tasted defeat at the hands of the AFL's two newest clubs and a 14-goal-to-one first half ensured Richmond would not enter that group at least until potentially round 19 when the teams next meet.

Dan Jackson saw less than a quarter of the action on Saturday afternoon after coming off second best in a clash at half-back. While Tigers medical staff tried to treat what appeared to be a leg injury, the decision was made to give the 28-year-old Jackson the red vest and activate sub Nathan Foley. Meanwhile, the Giants lost Stephen Coniglio late in the game with what looked like a shoulder injury.