Richmond VFL coach Tim Clarke was pleased with the way his side executed its game plan against Bendigo and praised the efforts of forwards Sam Lloyd and Liam McBean, who booted nine goals between them.

The Tigers kicked away in the first term to finish with 23 goals and 11 individual goalkickers in their 98-point win over bottom-placed Bendigo.

“We had a focus going into the game that we wanted to put a lot of pressure on them and we knew that if we could get away to a good start, put them under that pressure, it would go a long way to us winning the first quarter,” Clarke told Roar Vision.

“I was really pleased with the defensive game of our players, and then that transferred into a pretty solid offensive night.”

Clarke was impressed with the contested work of Lloyd (four goals) and Aaron Edwards (two goals), who were rarely beaten one-on-one. McBean continued his run of goals with another bag of five and is edging closer to an opportunity at senior level.

“He gets five and we think that he’s contributing as well as he can at the moment, however we’ve got to continue working on Liam’s game because when you see young forwards that are developing, it’s a lot harder to step up and do what he does at AFL level,” Clarke said.

“I know the coaches know that he would go and kick goals playing in our AFL team, it’s just whether he could keep the ball inside 50 and compete. He’s getting better every single week with it, it’s just a matter of time until he can transfer that into AFL football.”

The Tigers face Essendon, a side they have beaten twice this year, at Highgate Recreation Reserve in Craigieburn on Saturday, and Clarke is focusing on shutting down the Bombers drive.

“We played a really good game against Essendon in the pre-season, then we played them here at Punt Rd [in Round 9] and it was a terrific game of football.”

“They play a very exciting brand of footy off half back and through the midfield and we’ve got to be able to stop that to be able to give us a good chance of winning the game.”