The RouterLink directive does more than handle clicks. It also sets the <a> tag's href attribute, so the user can right-click and "Open link in a new tab".

For instance, the directive above will set the anchor's href attribute to /contacts/13/detail;full=true. And it will do it synchronously, without loading the configurations from the contacts or details bundles. Only when the user actually clicks on the link, the router will load all the needed configurations to perform the navigation.