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“Balta will train and hopefully play, Kane will hopefully train and play, and Lynchy will be next week,” Hardwick said.

“Marlion will be available to play. He has played one game in four weeks. Unfortunately, he has had those migraines, the suspension and the bye. We will see how he trains. He hasn’t trained a lot, he hasn’t played a lot.”

Hardwick said mid-season draftee Jacob Bauer, who surprised his coach at a birthday dinner on Sunday night when he said he still barracked for the Swans, had to learn the Tigers’ system.

Balta provides flexibility at both ends of the ground, while Lambert, dealing with a chronic injury, has managed only four matches but remains an important part of the side.

“What he [Lambert] goes through every week to play is incredible. No one does it better than Kane to give himself an opportunity to play,” Hardwick said.

The Tigers had a four-game winning streak snapped by the Friday-night loss, leaving them with a 6-5 win-loss record and outside the top eight.

“If you had said to me after the start we had, I think we were 1-3, we would be 6-5 at the break, I would be OK with it, but I wouldn’t be happy with it,” Hardwick said.

“A lot of our KPI indicators - time in front, quarters won, all those sort of things - we are actually up in the top four, we just haven’t got the result. We have had some really, really bad quarters within games. It’s cost us probably three to four games in theory.

“We are doing a lot of things right but, unfortunately, when things aren’t going well for us, we are getting scored against too heavily. We did a bit of work on that over the course of the break and, hopefully, start to reap the benefits of that knowledge and work we have put in.”

The AFL last week issued an apology to Lance Franklin and Trent Cotchin for accusations levelled at them during a tribunal hearing where Franklin failed to have his one-match ban over-turned for striking the Tigers great.

The Swans’ lawyer had claimed Cotchin “might get an invite to the Logies instead of the Brownlow this year” for exaggerating the impact from the Franklin strike.

Hardwick said Cotchin and Franklin are future Hall of Famers and “we don’t want to be using those word choices to describe two greats of the game”.

“I think both advocates wish they had their time again and probably used different word choices,” he said.

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Hardwick had not fronted the media since the stinging loss to the Swans, coming after a controversial finish when the Tigers were not paid a 50-metre penalty when the siren sounded.

Dion Prestia was awarded a free kick 65m from goal, a split second after the final siren sounded, prompting Swans midfielder Chad Warner to take possession and boot the ball into the crowd.

The Tigers felt a 50m penalty should have been paid but umpire John Howarth told Richmond players at the time that Warner “couldn’t have heard, common sense, OK?” Prestia’s shot on goal fell well short.

Hardwick took to social media the morning after to post: “Common sense. Sorry, what?”

On Monday, he joked his dog had sent the tweet, but said his players now had clarity.

“Clarity is always something we crave. Once again, we can understand [why] the decision was made. Big crowd noise, the game appeared to be over … there are going to be times again when 50s are decided by whether the umpire thinks they [players] hear the whistle or they don’t,” he said.

The AFL had immediately backed the umpire’s call.

Hardwick weighs in on soft cap

Jon Pierik

Hardwick has added his voice to growing agitation over the soft football department cap, declaring clubs for the first time are losing top off-field talent but need to be more unified in their bid for greater funding.

While other areas of football departments, and league executive salaries, have returned to pre-COVID levels, football department spending has not been allowed to snap back, sparking suggestions it could limit a club’s ability to lure four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson back into the fold.

The league introduced cuts of about $3 million per club in 2020, meaning staffing levels, including coaching and fitness, often remain under-resourced, the flow on being those still there are under greater stress with a demanding workload.

As the AFL Coaches Association prepares to take its complaint to the AFL, Hardwick said clubs were now losing great people to other aspects of the sporting environment.

“One thing we would say is, a lot of us travel overseas, the coaches and the resources we have available in AFL land are second to none, no question, but the fact of the matter is, with a cap in place, people are starting to leave the environment, which we have never seen before,” Hardwick said.

“It used to be the environment where people would come but because [they] are being paid more money elsewhere, they are getting dragged out.”

Collingwood president Jeff Browne and Swans chairman Andrew Pridham have called for a soft cap rise of at least $500,000.

Pridham pointed out staff - including medical and fitness staff - could earn more elsewhere, a key point when living in Sydney where cost-of-living pressures, particularly house prices and/or renting, are most expensive.

“You have a capped environment where you are in an open marketplace. Players are a bit different because they are either playing football or playing some other sport … but the reality is, it is a significant disadvantage to the two clubs based in Sydney,” Pridham told 3AW.

One suggestion is for 50 per cent of a senior coach salary to sit outside the cap.

Hardwick agreed with this plan, for he felt the Tigers were at a particular disadvantage because they had been so successful, and had to pay more to retain top talent.

“No question. That to me is how we gain parity in the competition. I don’t think my players should come in and be at a disadvantage just because we have been successful over a period of time. We should be entitled to have the same resources as every other club,” he said.

The AFL’s soft cap this year is $6.5 million - up about $300,000 from last year but still more than $3 million below the 2019 limit of $9.7 million. Few clubs, including the wealthy ones, pay over that amount, choosing to avoid a hefty tax if they spend more.

However, not all clubs are in unison when it comes to lobbying AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan for an increase.

“To be fair, I think Gill has a great understanding of what our desires are and probably agrees with them,” Hardwick said.

“The fact of the matter is, there are clubs out there that probably are in disagreement. Probably, we have got to get all of our ducks in a row at club land and figure out exactly what we need and what we want.”

Hardwick pointed to what shapes as a bumper new broadcast rights deal to help improve league finances, while noting “wages have increased back across various other aspects of the business but for people within football departments it hasn’t”.

Clarkson, should he return to coaching next season, could command a seven-figure salary, but Hardwick said his great mate would accept less.

“He will come back in, no question. Alastair Clarkson is worth an exorbitant amount of money with his knowledge and the IP [intellectual property] he has, but he is that sort of guy, like most of us are, that will take less to make sure we get the right people around us. Guys like Alastair Clarkson don’t grow on trees,” Hardwick said.

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