While the pain of its third straight elimination final defeat continues to haunt the Richmond psyche, the Brendon Gale-led administration will record its seventh straight profit to the tune of $500,000 for 2015. Having eliminated the last of its debt two years ago, the club now boasts significant cash reserves.

The board has not yet opened the debate on Hardwick's contract, although if the prevailing mood of stability across Punt Road is any indication the coach would seem likely to receive another contract extension in the first half of next year.

Hardwick has taken the Tigers to three successive finals and, although no one in a position of influence at the club saw the September capitulation to North Melbourne coming, the view remains that the coach has continued to improve.

It would take a serious setback for Richmond at this stage to turn to another untried coach with all the existing elder statesmen in contract beyond next year, with the exception of Paul Roos, who is expected to retire from senior coaching, and Alastair Clarkson, who has indicated he is ready to sign on again with the Hawks.

A top-four finish is the only ambition Gale has failed to achieve of his lofty hopes when he took on the job. On every other measure, bar the one that truly counts, Richmond are now a contender with more than 70,000 members and having in 2015 attracted the largest attendance figures in the competition.

Steadfastly refusing to discuss Hardwick's future beyond next season, Gale said the $500,000 profit – Richmond's 11th in succession – was a credit to the Tigers' board. "At the end of the day they're the people who should take the credit," he said.

While the profit was significantly down on 2014's $1.3 million, Gale said the Tigers had taken a deliberate view to invest more money into football with the club now ranked about eighth in the AFL in football spending, up from 10th the previous year. Richmond is now close to touching the soft spending cap imposed by the competition and will debate next year whether to exceed it beyond 2016.

Richmond has also paid $200,000 tax into the equalisation fund, a fund that Gale – along with most CEOs in the competition – agree demands reviewing. Geelong will lose some $500,000 in 2015 and yet have contributed $300,000 into the fund, which will net little more than $3 million to go towards the financially struggling clubs.

Beyond those two additional costs, Gale said of current club operations: "It's tough out there. We've had a strong result and a modest surplus but it's tough." Carlton's decision to withdraw from the gate-sharing agreement it held with the Tigers also hit Richmond's bottom line to the tune of at least an estimated $300,000.

Richmond, with a strong commercial fixture but a tough football campaign, will host the 2016 season-opener against the Blues in the only clash between the two traditional rivals next season.

The club's younger players were to start pre-season training on Friday with the intensive soul-searching that followed the North loss completed in the weeks that followed the game. Daniel Richardson and his team returned on Thursday from a three-day off-shore session devising draft strategies and Dustin Martin has returned early from his end-of-season trip with Dane Swan.

The only significant setback which followed the end of Richmond's campaign was the failure to secure Adam Treloar despite club bosses believing they had secured a trade agreement. But the Tigers no longer struggle to retain their good players and stood firm to retain its first round pick going into the national draft.

There remains only one elephant in the once murderous Richmond boardroom and that cannot be eliminated until next September.