Richmond were prepared to accept a below-par training standard earlier this AFL season but the Tigers are back on track, ruckman Ivan Maric says.
Maric said the club's leadership group and coach Damien Hardwick had resolved to focus on driving the standards around the club.
"We had to take a good hard look in the mirror and identify those things," Maric said on Saturday.
But, for the Tigers, it's probably going to be too little, too late.
Richmond's fourth consecutive win on Friday night against West Coast in Perth has lifted Hardwick's side to a 7-10 record with five rounds remaining.
Maric said the club's 3-10 start to the season, after finishing in the top eight in 2013, had left him "really upset".
"But I feel like it has been good for us to go through that," Maric told radio 3AW.
"Our training standards and the standards around the footy club were so poor. The attention to detail for the little things were not up to the standards we set the season before.
"Our training standards in the last nine weeks have been improving every week and that's the reason why I think we've won four in a row.
"It started with the leadership group and 'Dimma' (Hardwick).
"We focused a lot on policing and driving the standards and making sure that everyone was doing it, no matter if you're a captain or a first-round draft pick or whatever.
"We've made sure that everyone is doing the little things correctly, attention to all the details, and it shows in games. We're doing it."
Richmond great Matthew Richardson praised Maric's straight-talking approach.
"It's good to hear players be honest because we always talk about cliches and players wheeling out the same lines," Richardson told 3AW.
"So, to hear Ivan say that eight or nine weeks ago they sat down and thought 'we're not living up to the standards we set; we need to change', I think it's refreshing to hear that."
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