IF THE Bulldogs had begun to suspect that something was awry within their football department months earlier, they were certain of it after the side lost six of its last seven games of the season by an average of 64 points and somewhat fortuitously drew the other.

A team positioned in mid-July for a second consecutive finals campaign, with a 9-6 record, doesn't wilt like a four-day-old cut flower without good reason. And the excuse of injuries, which every coach will hold hands with in troubled times, wasn't good enough.

Suspicions of what had gone wrong, beyond the obvious issues on-field, were confirmed just over three weeks ago, when Ray Andrews of the Andrews Group tabled his review of coach Rodney Eade's football department with the board. Some of his conclusions were made public by president David Smorgon yesterday, interestingly in Eade's absence. The coach is on holiday in Europe.

And yet by mid-October, there was solid evidence by which to predict the outcome of the review and know what action the club would take, which, essentially, is to strip the coach of his broader managerial responsibilities and confine him to coaching. As a cynic might suggest, to be able to measure his performance by results alone.

By then, four assistant coaches, all with contracts before them, were gone and a fifth, Leon Cameron, had very nearly joined them to take up a position at Carlton. Chris Bond had decamped to Fremantle, Sean Wellman had opted to join Melbourne and Jason Mifsud had accepted a position with the AFL.

On Monday, October 15, only hours before the board gathered to consider the Andrews report, Matthew Drain stunned Smorgon and chief executive Campbell Rose with the news that he had accepted an offer to become football operations manager at St Kilda. Drain turned down a new three-year contract from the Dogs.

The reasons for their departures vary, but at least three of the former assistants held one thing in common: an immense frustration with the workings of the football department that Eade was granted control of when he was appointed coach in 2004.

Concerns over this exodus were compounded by a number of refusals the club received from potential replacements. The Dogs spoke with Guy McKenna about becoming Eade's senior assistant without success and wanted to hire recently retired Bulldog Brett Montgomery as an assistant, but he went to Carlton.

Despite giving Eade the keys to their football department, it became increasingly apparent to the Dogs this year that in their rush to beat Hawthorn to him, they failed to acknowledge the profound difference emerging at the highest level between coaching a football side and managing a football department.

It is now obvious that good coaching, while still important, has become merely one of a range of requirements for success. While few will speak against Eade's mind for match day, an increasing number found their voice on other aspects of his performance as the season wore on.

There was, for instance, disquiet within the coaching group about the pursuit of Melbourne forward Russell Robertson prior to trade week. The interest in the soon-to-be 29-year-old was, apparently, Eade's alone. It wasn't only the wider football community that saw the play for Robertson, a good but not great mid-sized forward trying to add a third year to what is likely to be his last contract, as a sign of desperation.

Rose, too, began to question Eade, concerning himself to a much greater degree with a department he had previously been prepared to leave to the football experts. Eade and the chief executive are not close and grew farther apart as the year fizzled to its underwhelming end. "Cam was too easily pushed aside when he wanted to get involved in the football area," Smorgon conceded yesterday.

Given Rose's determination to bring the football department to account next year, the rift, as it is described by Whitten Oval insiders, between him and Eade seems certain to make for a combustible environment even if there is a football operations chief to work between them.

Eade can certainly presume that he has lost much of his standing and may even suspect that his dismissal is being engineered. But with two years of a contract worth $600,000 a season to run, he is not without a degree of comfort and security.

Smorgon and Rose, on the other hand, will be thankful for the fact that the coach they fell over themselves to sign three years ago didn't agree this time last year to their offer of a contract until the end of 2010.