Richmond great Matthew Richardson has labelled the Tigers' 103-point AFL hammering by Carlton as "embarrassing".

Former star forward Richardson admitted Richmond's heavy loss on a day the Tigers were raising money from fans to help wipe out the club's debt was particularly disappointing.

The Tigers were outclassed by the rampant Blues in the first half of Saturday's MCG clash, before capitulating entirely in the second for their worst loss under second-year coach Damien Hardwick.

"It was un-Richmond-like since Damien's taken over," Richardson told the Seven Network's AFL Game Day.

"He's had them playing competitive footy, they've never let the scoreboard get in the way of the result.

"But yesterday just wasn't good enough. It was pretty embarrassing. To put in that performance wasn't good enough."

Richardson also said the Tigers needed to go all out to sign a quality ruckman for next season.

Developing big man Andrew Browne was put to the sword all day by Carlton's Robbie Warnock and Matthew Kreuzer.

Hardwick apologised post-game to fans for the performance in the 28.16 (184) to 12.9 (81) loss, accused his players of lacking effort and vowed not to review the match.

But he didn't believe the result would be a setback in the big picture of what the Tigers want to achieve.

"Two words - we apologise," Hardwick said.

"At the end of the day, the guys have got to want to have a crack and have got to want to play.

"That was really unlike us ... it was really disappointing."

The Tigers have now lost four of their past five matches and took a heavy blow to their percentage to further dent their faint hopes of making the top eight.

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