The inevitable conclusion emerging from an externally commissioned report into the Tigers is that few positions in the club's under-performing football operation can be guaranteed. And yet the only individual who appears certain of a job next season is the one who must take so much responsibility for a season in which it is difficult to identify a game where the team put together four solid quarters of football.

The senior coach is watching those around him depart. As assistant coaches are let go, others encouraged to look elsewhere, and key recruiting and other football staffers await the axe, Hardwick seems safe following a rock-solid guarantee from his president and by virtue of the two-year contract he signed at the start of the season.

Had his extension been for one year not two, it would have been unlikely that Hardwick remained at the club in 2017. That decision now looks foolish.

Certainly with hindsight comes wisdom but a two-year extension - following a third successive capitulation under finals pressure - demonstrated faith which the senior coach and his team have been unable to reward or justify. Hardwick's answers off the field have seemed as inconclusive as his solutions on it.

Too often this year Richmond's woes have been blamed on their lack of depth, but the compelling evidence is the team's failure so often to perform under pressure is strongly cultural. That comes down to the on-field leaders, the coach and his assistants so now the club is shuffling the deckchairs but not the coach.

Football boss Daniel Richardson must also be feeling some level of insecurity given the focus of the report, although there has no suggestion he will be removed.Fremantle chief executive Steve Rosich scoffed at suggestions his (contracted) head of football Chris Bond would join the Tigers but Richmond would not respond to questions regarding the availability of Neil Balme and whether he and Richardson could work together.

Repeatedly the Tigers have blamed their poor timing under Hardwick in attempting to rebuild when the Gold Coast and GWS came into the competition and snared all the best young talent. But that does not excuse botching their first-round selections in 2010 (Reece Conca at pick six) and 2013 (Ben Lennon at pick 12).

That both those players will now depart with little success is an indictment upon both the Richmond recruiters and development coaches. Mark Williams, who leaves the club disenchanted after joining on a generous deal to oversee that development, heads a list including Hardwick's former Hawthorn colleague Ross Smith and forwards coach Greg Mellor who have been waiting all week for the bad news.

Hardwick has fought to retain his long-term colleague from Port Adelaide Brendon Lade at a time some believe he should make a change. Strangely Lade has been offered a one-year deal but Richmond have given him their blessing to seek a more secure deal elsewhere. The club has not yet reached a decision on Mark P. Williams who remains in negotiations with the club but has also been encouraged to seek a position at another club. Both face a lack of certainty.

This smacks of indecision. That Richmond would look at keeping Lade for one more season makes it abundantly clear Hardwick will not see out the final year of his contract should another season like this one prevail. Neither should he.

In the end it is more financially prudent to pay out a coach for a season than cope with the economic downturn that comes with losses, disharmony and disenchanted supporters.

Too often the Tigers presented more like a VFL side than an AFL team this year with only a very few exceptions. But that does not excuse performances like the one against St Kilda, the embarrassment at the SCG last Saturday or the choke against Geelong. Again, those games were also an indictment on the preparation and coaching of the side.

Clearly the club is searching for answers in the form of new assistant coaches, recruiters and football personnel as well as a football restructure given the holes CEO Brendon Gale and the Ernst and Young review identified. But the disappointment still lingering from the club's woeful end to the season combined with ongoing suggestions of unhappiness suggest bigger changes and tougher decisions could yet be made.

The club denies it and yet the suggestions that Jack Riewoldt is seriously unhappy continue to surface. Gale and his board deserve the credit that comes their way for transforming the Tigers into a profitable, credible organisation after so many years in the doldrums.

They rebuilt the club off-field but must take responsibility now for football decisions that have failed. The truth is that they too will have failed if Richmond cannot succeed as a football team.

It is laughable that the commentary around Richmond occasionally still refers to them as a cut-throat, merciless club. If that was even half true Hardwick would not have survived after what the team dished up in 2016, a season which took a turn for the worse back in early March during a disastrous pre-season match at Etihad when injuries mounted and the coach attempted to put a stop to the game.

The situation never really recovered from that night.