Richmond coach Terry Wallace described Sunday's shock win over second-placed Hawthorn as the club's best four quarter performance of the season but the Tigers boss is not going to lie awake at night wondering whether it will be enough to end the club's finals drought.
Just a week after suffering a ten goal mauling in Adelaide and all but conceding the club would again miss the finals and Wallace sat back proudly on Sunday night as his team - minus star forward Nathan Brown and his best midfielder Nathan Foley due to injury - beat Hawthorn by 29 points on a day when their three young defenders in particular in Luke McGuane, Kelvin Moore and Will Thursfield announced themselves as future stars.
That trio were just some of the 11 Richmond players on Sunday that took to the field with 50 games or less to their name yet the Tigers controlled the game for four quarters against a Hawthorn side that had come into the game having lost just four games for the season.
"It was our best four quarter performance this year," Wallace said.
"It was the best disciplined, just get the job done type of game nothing fancy, that we have played where we have won other games this year more by kicking eight goals in a quarter and then gone missing for parts of games."
The fact that it came just a week after the team produced its worst effort of the season in kicking just six goals during that loss in Adelaide made the win even more creditable; according to Wallace.
"We were awful last week and we were more disappointed with ourselves because we didn't stick to what we had been told to and blokes were kick chasing."
"But I was pleased the guys acknowledged that and admitted what went wrong and wanted to do something about and we went from being as undisciplined structurally last week to as disciplined structurally today as what I have seen us since I have been here."
Indeed the Tigers rigid game plan of constantly swamping the Hawks' forward line with extra defenders and then pinpointing their way through the Hawks' own flooding tactics with precision disposal meant it was the Hawks' game-plan that broke down rather than that of the unfancied Tigers.
The win also gives the club a great chance of reaching the finals for only the third time since 1982 but not only do they have to beat lowly Fremantle and Melbourne at the MCG in their remaining matches but also must rely on two of Brisbane, St Kilda and Collingwood losing games.
But Wallace said he is more interested with giving success-starved Richmond fans something to look forward to next season by finishing off a much-improved 2008 season in winning form.
"I don't like looking at scoreboards and seeing what is going on other results and staying awake at night trying to work out permutations and combinations," he said.
"What we need to do as a club, from a footy point of view and a marketing and membership point of view, is we need to give our supporters a reasonable finish to the year so they want to come back and watch these young players next year."
"And if that gets us in (the finals) then good luck but if it doesn't get us in, we will see what happens (next year) but we believe we are on the right track (for the future)."