'DUCKING practice' could be on the agenda at Punt Road this week after Greater Western Sydney inflicted Richmond's fourth interstate loss of the season.

Tigers coach Damien Hardwick couldn't resist a tongue-in-cheek swipe at the umpiring of several tackles during his side's thrilling two-point loss to the Giants at Spotless Stadium.

GWS forward Toby Greene drew a free kick for high contact in a tackle by Tiger defender Nick Vlastuin in the dying minutes of the second quarter, which resulted in a goal.

Earlier in the term, Dustin Martin appealed in vain for a high-contact free kick after being tackled while his head was over the ball, only to be penalised for holding the ball moments later.



TIGERS DON'T DO IT ON THE ROAD Full match details and stats



"Look, I can't really comment on the umpiring, but it would be fair to say we're going to do a bit of ducking practice at training tonight," Hardwick said with a laugh.

"The game is incredibly hard to umpire, let's make no mistake about that. It was a pretty good contest, transition-wise it was up and back and it's tough. They get a lot right. Sometimes they get some wrong. That's life.

"The game, as I said, I don't think was dominated by umpiring tonight, I thought we saw a pretty good game of footy that we should be looking at the game and that's how it should be played. Two sides going at it for a long period of time and one side got out the winner."

You've got to stay awake when Toby's got the ball!#AFLGiantsTigers pic.twitter.com/l3hhYI0DHh — AFL (@AFL) July 14, 2018

The Tigers will be ruing multiple missed opportunities, kicking 10.17 (four of which were rushed).



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Young forwards Jason Castagna and Shai Bolton had opportunities to pinch the lead in the dying minutes of the match, but Castagna kicked a behind and Bolton's shot sprayed wide and out of bounds on the full.

It was a disappointing night for Castagna, who struggled without teammate Dan Butler (who is on the sidelines with an injured ankle). He had quite a few opportunities but finished with 14 disposals and five behinds.

"We spoke to [Castagna] at the end of the game, he'll probably be a little bit distraught about his zero (goals) five (behinds), but he gave himself ample opportunities to play the game.

"That's what we want him to do. He'll go back to the drawing board, work on his process and he'll get a result next week. The pleasing thing for me is he kept lining up to take those shots on goal, he had a good game tonight. The finishing wasn't there, but it'll be there next week.



WATCH Damien Hardwick's full post-match media conference

Richmond had 64 inside 50s and 27 scoring shots for a final score of just 77, and Hardwick was disappointed his side was not able to convert.

"They (GWS) defend really heavily, they get a lot of numbers behind the ball and then try to slingshot out.

"So you're always trying to go up against a large amount of players there, but you would have thought with the amount of ball we had in there, we'd be able to generate some better shots on goal, but that wasn't the case tonight."