His first two years may have been devoted to developing Richmond's list but coach Damien Hardwick has put his players on notice that in 2012 he won't be handing out jumpers unless they've been earned.
Speaking at the Tigers' time trial around 'the Tan' on Friday morning, Hardwick admitted that in his first two seasons in charge at Punt Road some of his young players had been promoted when they weren't ready.
But having blooded 10 players since he arrived at the club - including seven in his first season - after five debuted in 2009, Hardwick is now looking to press on in 2012.
"One of our big aims was to get 500 games into our players 22 and under and we've done that so now it's no-holds-barred, we'll be looking to play the best players possible and get our team up and going," Hardwick said.
"We're looking to upward trend again."
"Last year we improved from the previous year and we'll be looking for that sort of situation again."
"Every player that plays will earn their jumper this year more so than us looking to develop certain players."
"We'll expect an experienced team coming forward."
Hardwick stopped short of making any big statements about making the finals for the first time since 2001 next year but did say he has set his team to finish with more than the eight wins they had this year.
"We're not going to make any bold predictions thus far but once again we'd be disappointed if we didn't win more games than last year like every team will be," he added.
"We're looking to win more games in essence."
"We've put in two years of hard work to try and get our squad to the desirable result we're after and we'd be disappointed if we didn't go above and beyond last year."
In the 3.8km time trial in warm conditions on Friday morning Matthew White impressed with his time of 13 minutes and four seconds, finishing ahead of delisted rookie Pat Contin (13.44), who is still training with the club, as well as Bachar Houli (13.45) and Shane Edwards (13.56).
Hardwick was impressed with the performances of all his players but singled out young gun Dustin Martin, who slashed his personal best time around the iconic Botanic Gardens circuit by more than a minute from 12 months earlier.
"Yeah really good, we were very impressed with the times they ran," Hardwick said.
"They've been really diligent even coming in through the club over summer which is what we expected and we're hoping to see the dividends over the course of the pre-season."
"We've set some pretty lofty ambitions for a lot of our guys and they've come back in reasonably good shape which is great."
Confident that the entire list will be back in full training just after Christmas, Hardwick also ruled out a move for Zac Dawson or Travis Tuck in the pre-season draft, insisting in the case of Dawson that he is confident the club already has a good stockpile of key defenders.