RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick concedes his side won’t play finals football in 2016 - and says it doesn’t deserve to either after a disappointing loss to Port Adelaide on Friday night.

The Tigers desperately needed to beat the Power to remain even remotely in touch with the top eight but were found wanting at Adelaide Oval, going down by 38-points.

The loss pushes the Tigers to 12th on the ladder, three wins from the eighth-placed Western Bulldogs and Hardwick said that was too far back to sneak into September.



Five talking points: Port Adelaide v Richmond

“Finals, for mine, we’re not good enough to play,” Hardwick said.

“We haven’t played well enough, we haven’t had enough players stand up so it’s been disappointing.”

With the club no longer looking at finals football as a realistic expectation, Hardwick said part of the club’s focus would intensify on “finding” players to again turn it into a finals threat.

Hardwick wouldn’t reveal exactly what he believed was lacking at the club but insisted there were young players coming through who would be given senior opportunities provided they earn them.

“We’ve blooded a lot of young players this year, we’ll continue to do so but we’ve also got to make sure they’re ready to play AFL footy,” he said.

“We’re finding out about a few players at the moment, we’re trying guys in different positions…but we do look forward to some guys getting an opportunity.

“We’ll continue to try and win as many games as we can whilst trying to develop a playing list that can take us forward.

“As we saw tonight, we’re off the pace - that’s the reality of it. So we need to find players who can continue to take us forward and get us back to where we need to be.”



WATCH Damien Hardwick's full media conference

The Tigers were out-tackled emphatically on Friday night, losing the count 106 to 63. They also lost clearances 52-33.

Skipper Trent Cotchin was shut out of the game completely by the Power’s Kane Mitchell, and while the coach wrote Cotchin’s performance off as a bad day, he insisted his teammates had to pick up the slack.

But he scoffed at any suggestion there was any issue with effort - or lack thereof - at Tigerland.

“[Cotchin] was beaten tonight, he’d been in reasonable form over the past six or eight weeks so he’s probably entitled to have a down day every now and then,” he said.

“Most good players will play consistently well over the course of a year, he has done that. What we expect though is other players to stand up and we failed in that area tonight.

“Players don’t go out there and give no effort, we just got outplayed by a better side.”