Alastair Clarkson's extraordinary legacy to the game of Australian rules football is unquestioned and according to his contract at Hawthorn, will continue at this level for at least another three years.
And it is his record as one of the exclusive club of four-time premiership coaches that mitigates the massive risk he took at the end of the 2016 season when he toyed with the culture of his club.
When you analyse Clarkson's breathtaking roll of the dice in trading out two club legends for younger models and attempting to trade out others who hold long-term contracts, there is no better way of describing the potential collateral damage than cultural.
It has become clear that the club might have botched the Sam Mitchell-Jordan Lewis exits. There was an expectation that only one would go, but the coach's brutal manoeuvring put paid to that.
No one was more shocked than Mitchell when his end-of-season chat with the coach led to the suggestion he might complete his magnificent career elsewhere. Except perhaps Lewis who, according to former teammates, believed he was going to be offered the captaincy and instead had a giant question mark placed upon his future at the club.
Hawthorn might say that their midfield was being beaten and required the clinical overhaul, that Mitchell has picked up an excellent opportunity to launch his coaching career and that Lewis had agreed to stay with the Hawks until Melbourne upped the ante with a three-year deal.
Talk about harsh revisionism. There is no doubt both players are in their twilight. But it still seems weird that they were the scapegoats for a so-called struggling midfield when the club still believed it could win the premiership on the eve of the finals and Mitchell and Lewis finished first and second in the club championships.
None of the above changes the fact that a club and coach that have retained their champion team by convincing their players to make sacrifices for the greater good, has rewritten that internal mantra. Tyrone Vickery was brought in on a two-year, $1 million deal, which must surely have shaken up the pecking order and it was most fortunate for the Hawks that they managed to secure Jaeger O'Meara at the close of the trade period.
Should O'Meara and Tom Mitchell fire and Hawthorn again challenge next season, Clarkson will have achieved a significant coup. Disenchanted supporters will forgive him and the eternally pragmatic Sam Mitchell will continue to look forward and embrace his new journey.
And there is no doubt Lewis is significantly better off if you analyse his deal in terms of time and money and not romance.
But losing two players of their calibre wherever their respective careers head from here must surely impact the club by virtue of their absence and in the nature of their exits.
It is true that Mitchell (Sam) had pushed for and achieved an extremely lucrative two-year deal with the Hawks earlier in the 2016 season and did so after warning the club that he had spoken with West Coast due to his close relationship with Adam Simpson.
Having signed Mitchell, the prevailing internal view was that the club could not afford to hold on to all of its other veterans in Lewis and the then unsigned Luke Hodge, Shaun Burgoyne and Josh Gibson. And yet all were stitched up before the finals. Perhaps the finals capitulation changed their thinking.
Either way, no player at Hawthorn could now feel quite the same way about the club. And next time the Hawks attempt to talk an out-of-contract star or up-and-comer into staying, the entreaties will not have quite the same ring.
Clarkson – quite apart from his achievements at Hawthorn – has influenced the AFL's new coaching pathways, the reshaping of the coaches' association and the relaunch of the international rules. His harsh reshaping of Hawthorn's list over the 2016 trade period has sounded another warning message to football.
And his influence looks even greater with Chris Fagan's departure and the internally appointed Jason Burt as his replacement.
There is no doubt there has been upheaval at Hawthorn, however the club might try to spin it. Still, two years ago the then struggling Western Bulldogs underwent significantly greater dramas and emerged to make a mockery of the external dire predictions for their club.
At least Clarkson's current position and potential future is one of his own making. Unlike Nathan Buckley – who has been dealt another man's hand – the Hawthorn coach is playing with his own.