Richmond coach Damien Hardwick admitted that his players simply 'didn't turn up to play' on Sunday as the Tigers were comprehensively beaten by North Melbourne.
With light rain falling throughout the duration of the match, the Kangaroos adapted better to the tricky conditions to cruise to a 50-point win.
Hardwick was full of praise for the Kangaroos' performance and was left disappointed with his side's inability to match it with them.
"In all honesty I don't think our guys came to play. I thought North Melbourne were hungrier, harder and a lot better on the day, they played very, very well and handled the conditions a hell of a lot better than what our boys did."
"I think the conditions we took too long to (adjust) to, but also North were very good. (Andrew) Swallow was outstanding, we couldn't find a match-up for him."
"I thought (Brent) Harvey and (Daniel) Wells did there bit too and young Leigh Adams was another very good player."
"I just think they were hungrier than us today and it's a really good example to our blokes that if you come not to play early you get beaten."
Leading by a point early in the second quarter, the Tigers appeared to have the momentum, but a reckless incident by young gun Trent Cotchin changed that.
The 20-year-old was placed on report for charging into the back of Sam Wright, who was later taken to hospital with concussion, and from the resultant 50-metre penalty Kangaroos skipper Brent Harvey goaled to give his side the lead which they never relinquished.
Hardwick didn't see the incident as game-turning, instead looking at the Tigers' poor third quarter where they conceded five goals and effectively lost the match.
"No not really, I thought we were still in the game at half time, then in the third quarter we probably changed up a few things to try and get ourselves back in the game that probably backfired," he said.
"I think they kicked five goals and I don't think we scored, we might have kicked a behind or something in that quarter, so look I don't think the Cotchin one was pivotal in the changing of the game."
"It is a hard one. The game is played at breakneck speeds so from our point of view we'll just let the tribunal handle out and we just hope the consistency level that they've adjudicated that one over the course of the season."
"It was very similar to a David Hille incident earlier in the year so we'll see how that one pans out."
The Tigers' young ruck combination of Angus Graham and Tyrone Vickery were soundly beaten by their opponents Hamish McIntosh and Todd Goldstein and Hardwick conceded that that was key to why they lost the game.
"We were down 0-8 (in the clearances) at halftime from centre square. I think we're the No.1 centre bounce clearance side in the comp, differential wise," he said.
"We ended up getting that back to 10-11, but it was really disappointing. Our rucks took far too long and our centre bounce group took far too long to adjust, and as harsh at is, the loss of Dan Jackson was big for us and he's got to change his game because he is an important player to our footy club but also very important leadership wise in the middle as well."
"Over probably the last four to five weeks they've (Graham and Vickery) been very very good, I thought today they were really well beaten."
"I thought (Hamish) McIntosh was very good and (Todd) Goldstein did his work as well. Look they're going to have some up and down days, unfortunately they both probably had a down day today which is disappointing."
"But we'll persevere and we've got another young ruckman Andrew Browne playing very well in the reserves so he'll come in for a game at some stage in the next couple of weeks."
Hardwick was pleased with Ben Cousins' 'cleanness' with the ball, although he would have liked to have seen him kick more with the veteran finishing the game with 16 handballs and just 11 kicks.