Richmond were well on the way to undoing a lot of good AFL pre-season work.
At quarter-time in Saturday's match in Moe, they trailed Collingwood by 38 points after a terrible start.
The Magpies were rebounding repeatedly off half-back and killing the Tigers at the clearances.
Richmond had come into this game on the back of wins over Adelaide and Port Adelaide.
But all that was being forgotten in a hurry.
They were looking second-rate against a side who had lost their captain Scott Pendlebury as a late withdrawal because of injury.
What happened next will give the Tigers more cause for optimism ahead of their season opener against Carlton.
They quickly stopped the rot and, had they shown more composure with shots on goals in the last quarter, Richmond might have even snatched the win.
"It was a good wake-up call," said coach Damien Hardwick.
He said they were poor defensively, giving up a "world record" number of uncontested marks.
But Hardwick liked how his players dug in their heels.
"They're things you want to learn today, going into round one," he said.
"So we're pleased with what we got out of today but, more importantly, we're pleased with some of the mistakes that were made.
"We'll be able to rectify (them), come Carlton on Thursday week."
The next couple of months will be crucial for Hardwick and his Magpies counterpart Nathan Buckley, amid plenty of speculation about their futures.
Hardwick and Buckley left Moe with cause for optimism.
"We're reasonably placed at this stage," Hardwick said.
"We still have a lot of work to do in a lot of areas - coaches will always say that.
"But I think our players can walk away pretty happy with the pre-season they've had thus far."
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