Richmond coach Terry Wallace concedes poor kicking skills are hurting the bottom-placed Tigers badly, but says the solution is a long-term one.

Skill errors have been a perennial problem for Richmond in recent seasons, and Wallace acknowledged they were again the most disappointing aspect of Sunday's loss to Hawthorn.

The Tigers coach conceded it was a one-sided match after half-time and said his players had struggled to run with the Hawks after regularly giving up the ball going into attack and watching their opponents stream away.

"Every time we turned it over they hurt us, when it goes back the other way that's disappointing," Wallace said.

"Towards the end, twice we had senior players miss goal opportunities up one end, only to watch the ball go directly down the other end and go sailing through the goals at the other end.

"Two-goal turnarounds hurt you in football, probably the turnover rate was the most disappointing aspect."

It is far from a new problem for Richmond, Wallace conceding it was a similar story in last round's loss to the Kangaroos.

But he said while the Tigers' hierarchy was trying to introduce more skilful kicking players, it was a slow process.

"It's a critical factor in the game, but all I can say is how do you know we haven't been doing that over the last few years?" he said.

"They mightn't have come through yet, our VFL side's won comfortably today with young boys going around kicking it, it just takes time for that to actually come to fruition.

"But clearly we need to get more skill into our team, I don't think anyone that was here today or anyone that watched us play last week ... would deny that and that's exactly the case.

"But you've got to put them in when they're ready."

Wallace said supporters could at least take heart from the fact that the club was blooding youngsters, rather than treading water.

"Richmond supporters sat there (in past seasons) and said they're sick of finishing ninth," he said.

"Well, we're getting beaten at the moment and we don't accept the way we're getting beaten today, but we're getting beaten today with young boys, there's a dozen with less than 50 games.

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