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John Mitchell will be walking on egg shells at the Western Force, but the crunching sound you might hear will be coming from the grinding of Mitchell's teeth.
Having decided that the former All Black coach was acting like a bad-mannered bull in a china shop, the Force decided to keep him on board in Perth but with the proviso that he mend his moody ways and stop knocking the tea cups over.
Tricky business that, and I'll wager the crockery won't still be all in one piece by the end of the season.
Mitchell has yet to be extensively quoted on this outcome, although he hardly sounds delighted.
Coaches are like the rest of us. They are what they are, warts and all. To so publicly chip away at the bits of Mitchell that the Force don't like must seem like a stab through the heart to the coach.
What other sport would dare manufacture such a bizarre and heavily regulated bob-each-way solution?
Rugby is still rooted in its cosy amateur past, somehow sheltered from the realistic winds that blow through other sports.
The Force had two clear roads to choose from, to publicly back Mitch to the hilt or else bite the $1 million financial bullet and send him on his way. As the latter was apparently prohibitive, they had to choose the former.
Having discovered that virtually the entire club was anti-Mitch, the Force called in a retired judge to investigate, and after receiving his findings, announced this week that Mitchell's powers would be quashed.
Team selections have been "turned over to a selection committee, and a match committee would take responsibility for the planning and execution of all training", according to the Force statement.
Coaching is a difficult enough balancing act as it is, without letting a committee put its various 10 cents' worth in. That is why team selections have always been the private domain of coaches who are, in turn, free to seek whatever advice they choose.
The mystifying part is this. The root of Mitchell's supposed problems was his erratic demeanour, and there has been no outward criticism of his selections or training methods. Indeed, the seven win, six loss record last year is a credible if not startling one for a team in such a remote rugby outpost.
In the old days, someone would have had a quiet word in Mitchell's ear, or even a heart to heart. The last thing a club would do is publicly reduce a coach's authority or dare to clip his wings so badly that your team might have trouble getting off the ground.
Procrastination rules, even in rugby's new frontier. On this trend, the Force will need a committee big enough to fill a bus to organise the end of season barbecue.
Rugby is littered with this sort of stuff. The Brumbies stole the show in 2004 when their coach David Nucifora was effectively relieved of his duties by his famous players, even though he still got to carry his clipboard and win the title with them.
Everyone knew that the day the Brumbies allowed a few self-interested players to chop their coach off at the knees was the day their glorious run was over, and they haven't been the same since.
In New Zealand, Ian Foster's mates in high places keep re-appointing him as head of the Chiefs, even though season after season the team fails to live up to expectations except on the injury-crisis front.
Foster, to many eyes, had the makings of a fantastic coach but being mollycoddled in his home environment has failed to bring the best out of him or the Chiefs.
We're all still waiting for the great Chiefs dynasty to arrive, the one we are continually promised is just around the corner. It's all far too matey matey around the Hamilton rugby way.
Queensland rugby went down this all-in-the-family route for many years, under the guidance of John Connolly, and has never recovered in either results or the way it plays the game.
In the week that the Western Force decided on a form of rugby suicide by a thousand cuts, English soccer served up another dish of realism as Chelsea gave the much heralded Big Phil Scolari the chop, and poor old Tony Adams got the boot at Portsmouth.
Scolari has been punted for allowing his big-spending club to slip to fourth. Adams was axed because his club is in danger of getting the same from the Premier League.
Adams has far more excuses than say the Chiefs rugby franchise because money largely rules in English soccer, yet his bosses don't dare stand on such ceremony. Five seasons is more than long enough in the egalitarian Super 14 for a coach to prove he can build a title challenging side, yet Foster's reign lives on and on and on.
It is often said that English soccer is far too savage in its treatment of managers but I don't think so. There is something refreshingly honest about its brutality and the passion it retains for success.
In soccer, men in high places might spin their self-serving lines, but a discerning and passionate audience treats them with suitable suspicion and disdain. New Zealand rugby still takes the excuses hook, line and sinker and there is virtually no fan pressure exerted on the powers that be. The question I often ask is do the Chiefs' supporters care that they never look like winning a title? Or is a game of rugby just an excuse to wave silly banners and eat over-priced food?
Even by rugby's muddled ways, though, it's hard to know what script the Western Force are following. The moment they undermined Mitchell's position by putting him on temporary stand-down and called in the judge was the moment the game was up.
A team that had lost respect for its coach was being told the club hierarchy wasn't overly sure about him either.
In the end, the club decided not only that Mitchell was no good, but that they would keep him anyway. Their solution has been to rewrite the selection and coaching manual.
May the force be with the Force, but I have grave fears for their season and they don't have many margins for error in AFL-dominated West Australia. The club is bravely going where few would dare to tread, keeping what they clearly see as the problem and throwing out the tried and trusted way of doing things to compensate.
Yes, there may be occasions when English soccer clubs are too quick with the axe. But usually not. Conversely, dear old rugby is far too willing to accept excuses and just isn't savage enough.
