Carlton coach Brett Ratten spoke of his reservations about the effects of such a cap on the longevity of players on Wednesday and Hardwick agreed it could influence the types of players the Club picks in future drafts.
“It may be that it’s something we’ll have to weigh up and that’s why we’d like to know earlier rather than later,” Hardwick said from Victoria Park on Thursday.
“Obviously it affects your recruiting of players, so I just think we want to be informed. We want to know pretty much now what’s going happen for next year.
“I think what we’ve had with four interchange players is it’s allowed you to play guys a little bit older but the speed of the game can also take that away.
“From our point of view, the important thing is we need to know early so we can plan.”
The Tigers host Adelaide at the MCG on Sunday with Hardwick confident he will regain defenders Will Thursfield and Kel Moore for the match.
“They’re a very well-structured side, they play a disciplined brand of footy and it will be a really good test for our guys come Sunday,” the coach said.
“The main thing we’re looking forward to is challenging ourselves against another side who, at the bottom end of the ladder, is a very good side and could quite possibly play finals footy. It will be a great test for our guys.”
Hardwick said Daniel Jackson and Matthew White would come into calculation at the selection table, with the former available after serving his second suspension for the season.
“We spoke to him [about the suspension],” Hardwick said.
“We want guys to play up to the line, but we don’t want them to step over it and that’s what Daniel’s done.
“He’s let the team down. He’s an outstanding leader on the field for us, we were disappointed in his actions and he’s cost us games. It’s amazing how the importance of one player around a stoppage situation can be and he’s cost us dearly the five weeks that he’s been out.”
Heavy losses to North Melbourne and Collingwood in the past fortnight have burst Richmond’s bubble somewhat, but Hardwick felt some correctable errors from his young side had contributed to both losses.
Those defeats extinguished Richmond’s faint finals chances, but Hardwick will be looking at his team very closely in the remaining weeks of the season.
“We think it would be disappointing if we went back into our shells and played the way we did at the start of the year so that’s been a real driving force of ours,” he said.
“We’ve had our form ladder from round nine onwards and I think we’re on an even ledger at the moment so we just really want to keep our heads above water on that.
“It’s a real character builder for them to see how they finish off the year. We’ll keep putting our processes in place and hopefully get the desired results over the next four or five weeks.”
When asked if helping forward Jack Riewoldt win the race to claim the Coleman medal could also be a motivating factor, the old defender came out in Hardwick.
“I don’t like a goalkicking award to perfectly honest,” he said.
“If we could have one get away from our club, that’s a purely individual award that I’m not interested in and I’d be disappointed if our team was interested in that also.
“For us it’s all about getting our team game in place and going that way. It’s the furthest thing from my thoughts and the team’s thoughts in general.”
