Tigers reached K2 summit with AFL flag

First they climbed Everest, now Richmond have reached the K2 summit.

Tigers coach Damien Hardwick has revealed they took a mountaineering theme again into Saturday's AFL grand final thrashing of GWS.

Two years ago, it was about conquering Everest as Richmond broke their 37-year premiership drought.

Hardwick has revealed that for the 2019 grand final, they spoke about K2.

While K2 is the second-highest peak behind Everest, it is regarded as a more difficult and dangerous climb.

"It's harder than Everest ... we spoke about 'we've done Everest', now we're trying to go one harder'," Hardwick told FoxFooty's On The Couch.

One of the deadliest sections of the K2 ascent is a feature nicknamed The Bottleneck and that also became part of their finals theme.

Richmond struck an almighty bottleneck in last year's preliminary final when Collingwood scored an upset win.

"We carried on that theme from 2018 as well," Hardwick said.

"We fell short and there's a patch on the mountain called The Bottleneck ... it's where you get through or you die.

"We were at the bottleneck in the prelim final and we spoke about that. That was the main theme."

Hardwick also renewed the call for more players than the premiership 22 to be awarded medals.

There is renewed focus after Tigers player Jack Graham bravely played out the preliminary final win over Geelong with a dislocated shoulder that ruled him out of the grand final team.

"I think it has to change. We continually sit there and talk about team-first football," Hardwick said.

"You only have to see the way our guys embraced the development squad when they came onto the field (after the final siren). It was all as one.

"Every single person in that club, from the receptionist to our boot studder and all those people, are working towards the same goal.

"We need to reward the whole team ... it's prehistoric, really."