While it seems most in the Bendigo community had hoped a resolution would be reached between the Spirit board and Harrower that would allow the coach to continue into the 2015-16 season, that isn’t going to happen.

By Harrower’s own admission on Tuesday, he expects to be terminated and Spirit chairman Greg Bickley has said interviews for the coaching position will start this week.

I said it earlier this month and I’ll say it again, it’s a bloody shame that Harrower’s successful tenure has ended the ugly way it has and there’s no doubt the sight of someone else pacing the sidelines in front of the Spirit bench next season will take some getting used to.

But while it won’t be Harrower calling the shots next season like he has in all 194 games since the Spirit’s inception in the WNBL in 2007-08, his record will ensure there’s plenty of pressure on his successor.

For this isn’t the usual circumstances in which a coaching vacancy has opened up.

The majority of coaching changes are born out of under-performing teams and a mentality in Australian sport - particularly the AFL - to sack the coach, bring in someone new and it will turn around.

However, that’s not the case with the Spirit gig, with Bendigo anything but a struggler where the coach’s message wasn’t getting through to his players.

Whoever takes on the job is replacing a coach who has just led the Spirit into the past three WNBL grand finals, winning two and coming runners-up last season while also dealing with a fractured off-court relationship with the board that has since exploded into the public forum.

This new coach isn’t coming in with a clean slate to rebuild a lowly team where the only way is up. No, this is a team that has contended for three-straight titles and won 64 of its past 78 games during those three seasons - a winning percentage of 82.0.

To give a comparison, Harrower's winning percentage of 82.0 over the past three years is identical through the same time to that of Alistair Clarkson at Hawthorn, which has also played in three-straight grand finals for two AFL flags.

While the current board has kept the club alive with strong financial support, it has also copped plenty of criticism in the handling of the Harrower situation, and while you can’t stay up for ever, that may well be amplified in 12 months time if the Spirit, with Harrower ousted and a new coach at the helm, immediately tumble down the ladder.

Elite competitions such as the WNBL are a results-based caper and how would a prospective Spirit coach be feeling about the expectation to perform considering Harrower on the back of three grand finals in a row, an overall win-loss record of 129-65 and six finals appearances in eight years is now out of his job?

There’s also the increased pressure that will come with taking over from what’s one of Bendigo basketball’s most revered figures in Harrower, who transformed a regional minnow from nothing into a WNBL power on the court and has publicly stated through all the toing and froing over the past six weeks that he wanted to retain his job.

But as well as the pressure to live up to the lofty on-court standards Harrower has set, how would a prospective coach be feeling about the off-court position of the club when Bickley has stated: “Make no mistake, we are fighting for survival, and we are just hanging on. It’s one day at a time. Basketball is in a perilous state in this country and we don’t want to be the latest WNBL club to go to the wall.”

I’m sure coaching a WNBL team is hard enough without all the extra baggage that may come with the Spirit position.

In the meantime, while the search for the new coach takes place, hopefully – despite how messy it has become - there are also plans for the eight years service Harrower has given the Spirit, including the dual championship success of 2013 and 2014, to be duly recognised by the club for it has been a mighty effort.