Rarely was a political story of more woe than the state Liberals. For at least four decades now, the Chapmans and the Evanses have been the South Australian parliament’s equivalent of the Montagues and the Capulets albeit, of course, without the rebellious romantic dalliance.

That is, except for the fulsome peck ‘n’ embrace proffered by the current Liberal deputy to the retiring member for Davenport before Question Time yesterday, when (as Liberal spin doctors had helpfully advertised) he was mobbed by partisan well-wishers eager to shake his hand while the television cameras were rolling.

A few Labor types spontaneously got around Iain as well but, perversely, that wasn’t as bizarre a spectacle as the likes of David Pisoni clutching him to their proverbial bosom. Back in 2007, when Pisoni was instrumental in orchestrating Evans’ undoing as Liberal leader, I interviewed him in his electorate office for Channel 9.

Consenting to a one-on-one interview at all is dangerous territory for an MP who was only elected a year earlier, even more so when you’ve just helped knife a parliamentary leader. Things were going along swimmingly until I asked him what Mr Evans had actually done wrong, at which point he paused for several seconds, dished off a knowing smirk to his nearby adviser, before turning back to camera to deliver the standard non-answer. I didn’t run the non-answer; just the far more telling awkward silence and knowing smirk.

I’m told Evans still has a video of that night’s story on a shelf at home, just as the front window of his Davenport electorate office is still graced by a Tiser front-page declaring his great rival Martin Hamilton-Smith to be “history’s greatest traitor”, or some such. In the Liberal Party, old injustices are rarely forgotten.

While no Shakespearean tragedy, yesterday was not a good day for the political fortunes of the Evanses. In addition to Iain’s sendoff from parliament after more than a decade in Opposition, their favoured candidate in his Dad Stan’s old seat of Fisher was rolled by the moderate faction’s Heidi Harris.

At least, like Pisoni in 2007, there was the slight consolation that she then fronted the cameras with little evident forethought about what to say.

There is a school of political media training that argues you should always ignore a journalist’s specific question and stick to whatever message you want to convey. Unfortunately, there is another school that regards this approach as rude, dismissive and furtive. It tended to convey all that yesterday, at least until Liberal leader Steven Marshall helpfully decided to jump in and save the day.

There’s no doubt, though, that the Libs are jumpy about Fisher, if not Davenport. After that brief media exchange, Harris was quickly (and rather forcefully) ushered off the scene by agitated Liberal minders, mindful of what’s at stake.

From being on the cusp of Government in March, they’re now on the cusp of ruin if they don’t, as expected, salvage the former and safeguard the latter.

While there’s no obvious successor in the wings, Marshall’s position would be almost untenable if, having lost the unlosable election, he then presided over a failed by-election in a nominally Liberal seat a year into the reign of a fourth-term Labor administration that governs despite garnering a clear minority of the statewide two-party vote.

It’s unlikely to happen, but the Liberals would have to have at least planned for a few contingencies if it did (at least, more than they’ve evidently planned for the prospect of two by-elections within a year of the March state poll). The question is, who could they turn to next? Evans has gone; Hamilton-Smith is living it up on the Government benches. No-one may have yet had the nerve to break it to her, but Chapman’s chance has passed. As Iain helpfully pointed out to her in his farewell speech last night, if you ever get asked a week out from an election to rule out a leadership challenge, it’s probably a good idea to rule out a leadership challenge.

The figureheads of Liberal destabilisation have either departed or been nullified. Evans told the party-room in his last hurrah this week that it must be disciplined and united, which might have raised a few eyebrows. But the fact is, the Opposition is fairly disciplined and unified; it’s just not very effective.

A Morgan poll this week saw it fall five points behind Labor on two-party preferred and Weatherill lead Marshall by 12 points (56 to 44) as Preferred Premier. Which rather puts paid (yet again) to the theory that the Liberals can simply expect to surf in on a vague presumption that voters intend to “Right the Wrong” of their failure to win enough seats despite a 53-47 popular vote.

For years now, the Libs have never grasped that in order to win Government, you have to win a majority of seats (damn, it seems so simple when you put it like that!). But I can find no other explanation for the fact that they kickstarted the final week of the general election campaign (in which they needed to snare only six marginals for victory) with a funding announcement for a racetrack in a safe regional conservative electorate.

Of course, spending four decades fighting like the Montagues and the Capulets hasn’t proved helpful in winning seats (and, indeed, has actively helped lose a few to boot).

But if either Fisher or Davenport should fall to Labor, there would rightly be renewed leadership rumblings. That there haven’t been till now is a testament to one of two things: either a new-found maturity in the Liberal party-room, or the fact they haven’t a clue who else to elect.

Tom Richardson is InDaily’s political commentator and Channel Nine’s state politics reporter.