Astbury was taken by the Tigers with pick 35 in the 2009 NAB AFL Draft after playing all five games for Vic Country in the 2009 under-18 championships, and has played 13 games this season.
Despite kicking three goals on debut against Melbourne in round four, he says he's enjoyed the move to the backline.
"Life as a forward is hard when you're not winning games [like] when I started at the club," he said at Punt Rd Oval on Tuesday morning.
"Now that I've moved back, I think it's a role that I'll find myself in long-term.
"I'm not finding it hard at all - I've got a few good mates down there who are helping me improve, and I think that's where you'll see me long-term."
Richmond had put together a terrific run until a couple of weeks ago, winning five of six matches, and the defensive unit was a key part of the process. In that period, the Tigers were the team least likely to be scored against when the ball went inside 50.
The 19-year-old said the backline has quality, but it isn’t the only place the team has class, albeit young.
"We've got a terrific group - obviously we've got (captain) Chris Newman back there, and some seasoned players in Luke McGuane and Brett Deledio who have senior experience for the last five or six years, so we've got a group back there, and we're improving every week.
"We've got a young and talented group, but I think it was always just going to be a matter of time when we all started to gel together enough to start putting some points on the board.
"And once it happened, we went through a really good period, and we've had a little bit of a setback, but we'll bounce back.
"Obviously inconsistency was going to feature in our season, because we're such a young group.
"I suppose we've got a few tired bodies at the minute, but I think you'll find that we'll bounce back pretty well - we'll start to get on the up again, and show some more improvement."
He said the opportunity to possibly shape the final eight wasn't a thought heading into this weekend's clash with Adelaide.
"They're on the back of a pretty disappointing loss for their footy club, so I don't think it's about shaping the eight, that's not what we go out there to do.
"I think we just go out there to play our best football and improve."
