Richmond's horrendous AFL season took a further turn for the worse on Sunday night with the Tigers crashing to a 157-point humiliation at the hands of Geelong, the worst ever defeat that the club has suffered in the 99 years that they have been in the league.

It was a night of records at Melbourne's Telstra Dome and for Richmond the insipid performance produced the type of record they didn't want in a season that has been as frustrating as it has been fruitless. Not only was it the club's greatest losing margin, it was also the 11th highest in league history since the competition started in 1897, while the Cats' 107-point half time lead was the third highest of all time. The winning margin was also the third highest ever for the Cats who were a foundation member of the league.

The Cats, under pressure themselves over their own mixed recent form, had a field day at the Tigers expense, posting 10, 10 and nine goals in the first three quarters before taking their foot off the accelerator somewhat in the final term, kicking six goals while conceding four goals to the Tigers who left their most productive quarter of the match to the last one when the battle was well and truly lost.

Pretty much everyone in the blue and white hoops of Geelong got in on the party, Gary Ablett Jr. collected 32 possessions and three goals playing in the midfield, Ablett's brother, Nathan, kicked four goals, as did running player Andrew Mackie and forward Paul Chapman, who kicked all his four goals in the first half of the match before sitting out the second half with hamstring soreness. The only player to miss out for the Cats was Matthew Egan who managed only three possessions, all in the first quarter.

The timing of the loss couldn't have been worse for the Tigers after a week of internal blood-letting. Richmond announced that they were bringing in a policy of playing youth with an eye to the future, and as part of that dropped veteran Greg Tivendale from the senior team and forced another, Darren Gasper, into premature retirement, a move that was handled rather poorly by the club and certainly wasn't good for PR. The wisdom of that move is now being questioned after only one match and leaves the Tigers firmly entrenched at the bottom of the AFL ladder.

The competition's only other winless side, Melbourne, also suffered more heartbreak but at the opposite end of the scale. The Demons were agonisingly close to breaking their duck for the year but ultimately fell five points short of Port Adelaide. In front of a sparse crowd of only 16,000 people at the 100,000 capacity MCG, the Demons put in their most competitive effort of the year so far, sticking with the Power for all four quarters.They  held the lead on three occasions but were unable to make the decisive break on the Power.