Richmond went into last Thursday night’s qualifying final against Hawthorn with many football critics pointing to the Tigers’ downturn in some statistical numbers during the last few weeks of the home-and-away season as evidence they weren’t as well placed as 12 months earlier when they took September by storm.

Those numbers, however, counted for nothing when Richmond poured on the pressure and emerged with a convincing 31-point victory over the Hawks.

“You don’t win 18 games in a season proper without playing a pretty good system and we were really confident in that,” inspirational Tigers captain Trent Cotchin told 3AW.

“We knew that there were areas of the game that we still wanted to improve on. We did a lot of work on that over the last couple of weeks, or over probably the last month or so.

“It was just a credit to the guys the way they showed up.

“There’s obviously still an outstanding amount of pressure in those games for both teams, and all of the remaining six teams that are left in finals.

“So it was really good to just play a four-quarter, solid game.

“The boys all stood up at their different moments and we’ll take a lot of confidence out of it.”

Once again, Cotchin led the way superbly for Richmond with his fierce attack on the football throughout the four quarters.

He had 26 disposals, including 16 contested possessions, seven clearances, eight score involvements and five tackles.