Richmond's greatest ever coach Tom Hafey says the club simply cannot afford to make yet another mistake when appointing a successor for Terry Wallace after more than a generation in the AFL wilderness.

Hafey does not mind whether the Tigers go for experience or an untried coach, but has called for an end to trial and error at Punt Rd.

After an unsuccessful four-and-a-half year stint at the helm, Wallace resigned as coach on Monday and will be in charge for the last time on Friday night against the Western Bulldogs.

On Saturday, the Tigers will appoint a caretaker coach for the rest of the season from one of the current assistants.

Richmond have not won a premiership since 1980 and have only made the finals twice since 1982.

It is a far cry from the club's golden era of Hafey's reign as coach from 1966-76, when the Tigers won four premierships.

"It will be interesting, of course, because there are quite a lot of names being brought up," Hafey said on Thursday.

"I would have thought Leigh Matthews and Michael Malthouse would have been two of the main candidates.

"They would be outstanding candidates in my opinion, but you might say Nathan Buckley or Wayne Campbell could be just as good.

"Get the right person."

Hafey admits he would like next year's coach to be a former Richmond player, such as former skipper Campbell.

"They've still got to get the best person available and when they look at all the candidates, it may not be a Richmond person," he said.

"I probably would like it to be, incidentally."

While Hafey also had success coaching at Collingwood, Geelong and Sydney, all his premiership triumphs came at Richmond and he is clearly a Tiger at heart.

The coach of Richmond's team of the century is sick of the ongoing mediocrity at Punt Rd.

He said those around the new coach also must make the right decisions to ensure they have a strong team.

"We've had a lot of failures in the last 30-odd years," he said.

"You can't say trial and error, because it's too important and where we've finished in recent times is not good enough.

"With the draft system, you should be up there and so you've got to select not only the coach, there has to be people making the right decisions.

"We've been criticised, badly, for some of the decisions the Tigers have made."

While Hafey craves the return of the days when Richmond were one of the league's powerhouse clubs, he is also realistic about how hard it will be.

"It is sad and when I take my grandchildren, we never, ever sing the club song and they're dying to do that," he said.

"We've just got to hope it does change - but you're not going to win too many.

"It was 25 years before they won, from 1943 to '67."

Hafey was at Geelong on Thursday to help launch the club's 150th birthday celebrations.

He warned the unbeaten Cats that they must make the best of their current form.

"I know they've won (52 out of 55), which is quite freakish, in this period, but these things can stop very quickly as well," he said.

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