Yet when Gilbee had five goals on the board by the five-minute mark of the second quarter, his coach Rodney Eade had no choice but to leave him there for the entire afternoon.
The 30-year-old veteran of 194 AFL matches finished with a career-best haul of six, as he led a procession of Richmond opponents - Chris Newman, Bachar Houli, Reece Conca and Dylan Grimes - a merry dance.
His accurate kicking from set shots and strong marking overhead was the feature of his performance.
"I kicked the first two and got the message 'stay forward'," said Gilbee, who is usually used as a rebounding defender.
"It's good to play up forward and instead of chasing backsides they got to chase my backside a bit.
"I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was just good to have a win and get the mood up around the place."
Gilbee, whose previous best effort was four goals in a loss to West Coast in 2005, could have booted seven if he hadn't dished one off to Will Minson in the final quarter.
His generosity enabled Minson to finish with a bag of four.
"I was thinking about the last one, 'Should I give it to Will or not?' It was good to get the 10 goals out of myself and Will," Gilbee explained.
The Dogs, who were in 12th place on the ladder before the match, booted 23 goals in their most fluent performance of the season.
"It was such an important game for us," Gilbee said. "If we drop that we're two and five and really struggling to get back into the season.
"We probably played into our shells in the first five or six rounds even though I thought we were good against Collingwood for three quarters.
"It's important that we still identify the areas that we need to improve and we do have to improve in a lot of them.
"But it was just good to get the result today."
Eade's line-up should be even stronger when it travels to Perth next weekend to take on the Eagles, with injured duo Barry Hall (ankle) and Shaun Higgins (groin) both a chance to return.
Given they regularly play up forward, Gilbee might again be chasing backsides when he next takes to the field.
"I might have to go back again," he admitted. "I'm pretty sure [Hall's] spot's safe in the goalsquare next week.
Adding to the Dogs' attacking options are impressive youngsters Liam Jones and Jarrad Grant.
The former booted two goals and hauled in nine marks, including a couple of powerful contested efforts.
Grant, meanwhile, should have slotted five or six goals, but his inaccurate kicking meant he ended the contest with 3.3.
"The good thing about today was that we had a real good spread," Gilbee said.
