With the mid-season deadline imposed by his club yesterday, Richmond coach Terry Wallace – at least for now – keeps the sharks at bay.

Few would have been surprised to see Wallace depart the Tigers this week.

President Gary March had spoken of “contingency” plans and Kevin Sheedy’s name was being bandied about with abandon.

Indeed, Wallace’s stay of execution, as it might be, is quite unlike the traditional heavy-handed Tigers approach.

Perhaps March realises that, if they were to make the decision to oust their coach, it would raise a difficult question. Because if Terry Wallace is not the best candidate for Richmond, then who is?

The options are hardly jumping off the page.

Number one is to pluck an assistant coach from around the league, and there are a few that have been touted as likely prospects.

Current Tigers assistant Wayne Campbell is apparently being groomed for the job, while another alumni in Leon Cameron is highly rated at the Bulldogs.

If March views the job as too big for the untried, then their current options are decidedly fewer.

Caroline Wilson wrote that Sheedy would never coach again. And it remains to be seen if the Bomber legend would sully his hands with the Tigers job.

If they decide to dispense with Wallace mid-season, the board may elect to offer the position to Campbell or someone similar in a caretaker’s capacity, knowing that more than half a dozen current AFL coaches are out of contract at season’s end.

Still, it’s hard to see many of them champing at the bit for a shot at the helm of the Tigers. And it’s easy to see why.

While Wallace may end up getting the shove for his side’s inadequacies, his squad deserves to take its own responsibility for the Tigers’ horrid football.

A look through the list is like a who’s who of big-game failures, underwhelming recyclables, and promising draft picks, all of whom have neglected to deliver.

Richard Tambling, Kane Pettifer and Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls belong in the latter group, while the likes of Jordan McMahon and Adam Thomson sit in the middle category.

None fit into the former better than 2008 Jack Dyer medallist, Brett Deledio. Like the girl with the curl, when Deledio is good he is very good. When he is bad, as he has been this season, he is horrid.

It would be riveting to see what Dyer himself would have made of Deledio and Richmond’s current predicament.

It all means that any prospective coach would inherit a poor squad with dubious short and medium-term prospects.

The Tigers’ list is hardly likely to improve in a hurry, either, with the AFL’s nest egg to Gold Coast spiriting away most of the early draft picks in the 2010 draft.

So the forecast appears grim at Punt Road. Those hoping that simply replacing Wallace will reinvigorate the club’s fortunes may end up being disappointed.

It’s an emotion Tiger fans know all too well.

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