Richmond are one of only three teams sitting down the bottom of the table on one win – alongside Hawthorn and the West Coast Eagles in worrying signs for the club.
And now questions are being asked whether coach Damien Hardwick is the man to take the club forward.
The On The Couch panel put together an alarming comparison to former Hawthorn mentor Alastair Clarkson before his exit from the club at the end of 2021.
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Both Clarkson and Hardwick have similarities leading successful three-time premiership eras.
Statistics show three years after their last flag, Hawthorn had an average player age of 26.15 and 112.9 games experience.
And Richmond are currently sitting with an average age of 26.61 and 115.5 games.
“The Tigers are in a really interesting situation,” Fox Footy’s Garry Lyon said.
“This footy club sitting at one win, five losses and a draw. Let me say this off the top – if Damien Hardwick wants to coach Richmond next year, he coaches Richmond next year.
“I think he’s absolutely sensational – no one is saying he’s getting sacked and I’m not trying to chase him out.
“Should he be looking at the experiences of his old mate Alastair Clarkson at the Hawthorn Football Club and the similarities between the two clubs at this particular state in time after having enormously successful periods?
“It’s quite stunning.
“We can pluck out (Hawks late recruits) O’Meara, Mitchell and Wingard … and the Tigers (additions) Hopper, Taranto, Robbie Tarrant.
“(Jack) Riewoldt goes probably end of this year, (Trent) Cotchin goes at the end of the year. Robbie Tarrant may or may not go.
“No one is sacking Damien Hardwick, no one was sacking Alastair Clarkson after this period either.
“Is it right for him to go ‘OK, can I go back to the well? Can I look at this side without those stars and rebuild?’
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“They’ve got no first round draft pick this year, so does Damien Hardwick sit back now and go, ‘yep this is what I need, I need this to go again?’.”
After Hardwick’s 14 years in the job, Lyon said he believed AFL clubs were “wedded” to coaches for too long.
“We saw it with Leon Cameron as the classic case, your good self Bucks (to panellist Nathan Buckley),” Lyon said.
“No one’s given more to Richmond than Damien Hardwick. He’s got the right to call time whenever he wants.
“The coaching landscape is fluid.”
Buckley said listening to Hardwick speak after his side’s 24-point loss to the Gold Coast on Sunday showed he was “still invested” in the club.
“I think when you get to this stage of the evolution for a team, you’ve got assume there’s potentially a little dip now before Richmond come back – this is about where clubs make changes in coaching leadership and tenure,” he explained.
“They’ve got to have the conversation.
“Have you got the energy to go through this dip and come out the other side?
“Do we believe you’re the right guy to do that? Those conversations will happen behind closed doors.
“Richmond entered this year knowing the bottom half of their list was green, green as.
“(They were) trying to see where they could take Grimes, Cotchin, Riewoldt and whether they could have one last crack at it and now there’s a price to pay for that – maybe we’re seeing it now.
“They don’t have the skeleton for the young blokes to be performing off. The bookends in part – (Samson) Ryan down one end and (Tylar) Young at the other.”
Damien Hardwick remains contracted at Richmond until the end of 2024.
