I suspect at some point this year, whether it's mid-season or September, Hardwick will come to the hard realisation that he's starting again (if he hasn't already) and then he will need to ask himself if he's up for the rebuild or wants to move on.
I think there was a proud part of him and the club that wanted to see if 2021 was just ruined by injuries and we had another flag in the list. There was a recent article suggesting our 2021 injuries masked the decline of the team and I do wonder if that's true.
Will Hardwick stay and rebuild the list? I actually don't think so. He will probably give it away after 2023 or so and we should all be grateful that we had him.