RICHMOND coach Terry Wallace has labelled the Sydney Swans the best team his Tigers have played this year in the wake of an 82-point loss at the SCG.

After six weeks of football that yielded two wins, a draw against the red-hot Western Bulldogs and spirited showings against pacesetters Hawthorn and Geelong, the Tigers were entitled to consider themselves a chance.

But their optimism was blown away by two quarters of clinical football from the in-form Swans.

“It couldn’t be more disappointing. We came up here really keen to see if we could get our season really alive. We thought we’d taken some real strides forward (so) to just be clinically taken apart like we were in the first half was unacceptable,” Wallace said.

After watching his players walk to the quarter-time huddle in a state of shock following the Swans’ seven-goal first term, Wallace said he feared Sunday’s game could get “extremely ugly” for his side.

But he said the club would take some heart from an improved second-half performance, led by a strong game from classy midfielder Brett Deledio.

The Tigers were plagued by handling errors throughout the game, which were compounded by their apparent inability to hold their feet on a slippery SCG surface.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Wallace, who suspected the wrong choice of boots was to blame for several players.

“As a professional athlete, you have a responsibility to go out, check the ground surface and make the decision on what’s the right footwear to wear on any given day,” he said.

“We had half a dozen blokes that clearly didn’t wear the right footwear and we’ll discuss that during the week, because that’s unacceptable.”

Wallace said it was possible some of the Richmond players had overplayed the importance of the game in their preparation and he assured supporters that the issues arising from the massive loss would be addressed before next Saturday’s game against Adelaide.

“We’re in front of our home supporters in six days’ time, and clearly we want to show them what we’ve done in a seven-week period, not what we did over an hour of football today,” he said.

“We need to show our supporters that we’re better than what we showed today.”