The Pies went down to the rampaging Tigers by 91 points at the MCG on Saturday afternoon, and Pendlebury was candid about how he felt after the match.

"I've never played in game like that. It's my first time ever playing in a game didn't mean anything," he said on 3AW.

"As a football cub we can't get to finals, and I thought early we didn't start too well but the effort was there... we just can't defend at the moment."

Buckley said he understood his skipper's point of view, because the game lacked the short-term "carrot" of a finals berth.

But he said Collingwood should be a team that tried its best each time they played.

"We lowered our colours today against our own standards. We want to be an unconditional footy team that plays its best football, whether it is a NAB Cup game or whatever it is, and we're still learning to do that."

Buckley said the team went into the game with two major focuses. The first was to prevent Richmond from getting too many contested marks and controlling the football. The second was to was to be more measured with their inside-50s. He conceded they succeeded with neither.

He said the players then deviated from the game plan, which quickened the slide.

"We turned into 22 individuals and not a team.

"There's a season of effort unrewarded, and there's a breaking point, and to me that's what that last 20 minutes is."

The last time Richmond beat Collingwood by a bigger margin was on July 3, 1976, when 36,470 fans watched the Pies crumble at the MCG.

Nearly four decades later at the same ground the scoreline was remarkably similar. On both occasions the Magpies finished with seven goals and 14 behinds.

And while the Tigers would have needed three more behinds to smash that record, they had much to celebrate on Saturday.

Rarely have Richmond fans sounded more rapturous than when belting out the theme song post-match, as top goal-scorer Ty Vickery ran around the boundary offering high-fives.

They were a team roaring towards the finals – skilful and organised - and they kept Collingwood goalless until 15 minutes into the first term, then piled on nine in the last.

In a remarkably even season, their dominant display was a reminder they would be real contenders come finals time, even though they are positioned outside the top-four.

Despite the emphatic win, Richmond coach Damien Hardwick said there were some aspects of their game he would like to see the Tigers improve on – they were getting a bit stuck at times in their defensive 50.

But he said the players were now able to adapt their playing style to beat different opponents, a sign of growing maturity.

"It's not something we've just brought into our game over night, we've been training it for two to three years," he said.

"One thing the playing group has gotten a lot better at now is understanding the timing, the speed of movement, how to shut a game down, how to score when you get the opportunity."

Hardwick said it was good to see some of his less high-profile players perform well, including mature-age rookie Kane Lambert who put his head over the ball a number of times in the last quarter.

"We're pleased with that developing core coming through that stood up, which was great," he said.

It was the biggest loss Collingwood have suffered since Buckley took over as senior coach in 2012.

They got the ball inside 50 twice as many times as the Pies in the second quarter, but managed just seven behinds to Richmond's 3.3.

The final term was a yellow-and-black party, as the Tigers kicked goal after goal.

Twelve Richmond players kicked at least one goal in the win, Bachar Houli and Jack Riewoldt scored two apiece, Sam Lloyd and Brett Deledio each got three, Ivan Maric four and Vickery starred with six.

Collingwood players appeared to stop running hard in the final 20 minutes of the game and Buckley said that was what disappointed him most.

"We loosened the grip, we let go, we stopped working, we didn't trust and that was a really poor aspect of the game," he said.