Pains me to say the following, but....
What a phenomenal effort to win arguably the most difficult flag there has been in VFL/AFL history - not just on Saturday night, but the season throughout.
If they keep this group together, then there's no reason why they can't go on to win more. Usually when teams win a second or even third flag, the core group is aged and it's the last hurrah, but that doesn't look the case here.
One thing about this Richmond team though is they are just that - a team. They work seamlessly well together and no other side in the comp comes close to this. From line to line they just function as a collective. They play to a system that works and works well - and every player is well-drilled to play to it which is why injuries affect this club less because it looks like regardless of whoever comes into the side, they know what they need to do.
Top-end talent helps, especially if you've got Dusty, the game's best player and certainly one of the best to have ever played, but that talent at the top will only take teams so far - Geelong of the past few seasons are an example of that, and Carlton during the Judd/Fev era which had a bunch of mid-table finishes. It simply needs to be a buy-in right throughout, which it is at Richmond.
It's amazing to think that four years ago they'd missed the finals after a string of first-week exits and looked set for more mediocrity, and Hardwick looked like a dead man walking. It wasn't a culture shift overnight from 2016-17 and clearly those inside the club saw the progress he'd made beyond win/loss ratio to keep him on, having built from the time he took over in 2010.
The old Richmond would have moved stealthily to remove him, and that's part of the significant culture shift within the club. From memory there was even a board challenge up and going but the club treated it with the ignore it probably deserved. The old Richmond wouldn't have done that.
Hardwick's now one of the great coaches with three flags to his name. The key thing for me is how he's been able to keep his side backing up year after year. The players love him and they play for him, and coaching now is all about relationships, and it's extremely difficult to get a squad all on the same page.
The supporters who stayed with them through the hard times - and there were plenty - deserve this after turning up each year, each week when they were the laughing stock for so long. But I'd say that 2017-2020 more than makes up for countless weeks across more than three decades of showing up regardless, knowing your side would get flogged but sticking by them. I'm sure like any club who's had success they've had folks jump on the bandwagon recently, but those aside, the special thing by and large about Richmond's legion of supporters is they still turned out in numbers when there was no hope, and what a feeling it must be to experience the current highs.
I'm sure I'm like a lot of supporters of rival clubs, where I'm left to wonder - how did one club get it so right, and another get it so, so wrong? I'll admit the jealousy is high, but why wouldn't it be. For years after Essendon won their 16th flag to equal Carlton, many times in pubs with a pot in hand would be spent heartily bantering and bickering with Bombers mates over who would reach their 17th flag first. Well, none look near it, haven't for years and are still that far off that I haven't bothered debating it for a long time.
The jealousy hurts as a supporter of a once powerful club to see them falter year after year, while a well-run club like Richmond has emerged from the wilderness to record a dynasty of three flags in an era where they've never been harder to win - and it could have easily been the past four premierships. But that jealousy turns into (grudging?) admiration for what they've been able to do, and you've simply got to respect it. There really is no other way than to roll your sleeves up, work hard, stick by each other, buy in and make the right decisions on club personnel.
It doesn't last forever and nothing is ever guaranteed in footy, so if this is the last one they win, it's a pretty special one for a number of reasons. But I fail to find a reason why there's not further success to be had in the Tiger dynasty.
