THE strains of the beautifully simple, profoundly evocative Paul Kelly song From Little Things, Big Things Grow rang out around the MCG before last night's Dreamtime game.

The song is about the Gurindji stockmen who went on strike for better wages at Wave Hill in WA in the 1960s. But Kelly and Kev Carmody and Peter Garrett (among others), who belted it out from the middle of the colosseum last night, could just as easily have been singing about Richmond.

The Tigers are in the course of building something substantial themselves under Terry Wallace, and last night, they made some more progress.

Precisely how much progress, it's difficult to say, because the opposition, Essendon, is confirmed as a basket case for 2008. The Bombers were so inept in the first half last night that they went to the long break 50 points down. Right now, with Scott Lucas out of the side, it is close to the worst team in the competition.

But Richmond did what it had to, securing a 38-point win before 60,333 people, grinding away at the frail bodies of its opponents and pushing hard into space.

The Dreamtime game was a little flat, which probably is no surprise since the combatants are both bottom-eight teams. Richmond is moving, and may be on the way back. Essendon is in the initial stages of that process and bleeding badly. It was the Bombers' sixth consecutive defeat.

The Tigers managed to set the tone early, and it was Matthew Richardson who showed there would be no beg-pardons. He launched himself into a marking contest in the goal mouth so manically that bodies were strewn everywhere afterward, the scene resembling a road crash. His teammate Nathan Brown waltzed in to kick the goal.

Richmond proceeded to kick the first eight goals of the match, and at this point what is meant to be a big occasion was shaping as a major embarrassment. Since Sydney had booted the last 13 goals of the previous weekend's game against Essendon, it meant the Bombers had conceded 21 consecutive goals without bothering the scorers, an astonishing statistic.

It took until the 11-minute mark of the second quarter for Matthew Lloyd to break the drought with a straight kick from 40 metres. Essendon's disposal skills were so woeful that the crowd grew restless — one of the biggest cheers of the night came 27 minutes into the second quarter, when David Hille hoofed the football forward after a string of about 10 dreadful handballs, generally to players already manned up, or along the ground, or on the wrong side of a running player.

Yet Essendon hung in, conjuring a good third quarter when Lloyd intervened. He had spent much of the first quarter getting cold at full-forward while his teammates butchered the football up the field, but when they used it effectively, he looked dangerous. The Bombers kicked six goals to two for the third quarter and momentarily threatened to make it a contest.

Then Richmond steadied, through the work rate of Nathan Foley and Brett Deledio around the ball and the opportunism of Nathan Brown and Shane Edwards up forward. Edwards, in his 23rd game, booted three in an encouraging performance. It is not widely known he has indigenous heritage, with an Aboriginal grandmother.

He was one of the young players best-afield Foley praised later. "There are a lot of players starting to feel comfortable at the level," he said. "They're starting to play a pretty exciting brand of football."

Essendon bordered on the respectable, at least not conceding a poultice of goals. But this will be cold comfort to Matthew Knights, who coached against his old team for the first time. Knights stuck with his mantra, not putting numbers behind the ball, not employing any hard tags. But the Essendon fans were on their way up the aisles halfway through the last quarter; they know they are in for a long wait.