There was desolation in the North Melbourne rooms on Friday night, but resignation too. Improvement comes from acknowledging the benchmark and vowing to reach it, and the broken Kangaroos knew the touchstone was just down the corridor.
Coach Brad Scott addressed his players three times after the 71-point drubbing by Sydney, the latter in the locker room by way of thanks to every staff member. As the volunteers so central to this earthy club packed away the detritus of another season, Drew Petrie said every person already knew the response their 2014 exit demands.
"They were just simply too good on the night - they were ferocious in the contest, they broke through our tackles and were more aggressive," Petrie said.
"It wasn't the occasion that got us. Week one against Essendon we were a pretty nervous side and it showed. Week two (against Geelong) we felt more comfortable. The occasion wasn't going to overawe us, but the contested (game), the aggression that Sydney brought on the occasion was far better than ours.
"It turns into perceived pressure. Our guys were making skill errors. We had outnumbered situations, but we still managed to miss handballs and miss kicks because of the pressure they brought around the contest. We were waiting to be tackled all night. They were ruthless around the ground in not giving us any space."
Ferocious. Ruthless. Aggressive. Scott would add "efficient" and "scintillating" and hail a team that punished every North mistake as the best opposition his side had faced all year.
On the Olympic Stadium turf he'd told his players they were so close to experiencing the ultimate game in football that they could almost touch it. Petrie recalled his sobering words, that for all the hard work that underpins a season, it would take another year's toil just to conjure the chance to get this far again.
Inside, as players tossed the last balled strapping tape of the campaign on the floor, their coach planted the first seed of the next. "He said the 'P' word already - 'that'll drive you in pre-season'," Petrie said. "He said, 'let this loss sit in your guts and drive us in pre-season to get better, and the next time you get this opportunity we'll be better prepared for it.'"
Scott spoke of the suspicion that his team would have been outclassed even if it had played to its optimum.
"While we didn't think we were at our best, I'm not sure even that would have been good enough," he said.
The Kangaroos bettered every contender this season; their coach saw ominous signs for the Swans' grand final opponent.
Assessing a season in the minutes after its demise is fraught; Petrie acknowledged that nobody "wants to think of the good times", seeing only the negative of the last gasp.
"I don't feel you can look at it as simply and say, 'is it a tick or a cross this year?'. It's an improvement - we won two good finals, we played some great footy, (but) we got shown up tonight," he said.
"It's better than where we were last year and the year before that. That's the best season we've had under Brad. Position-wise, finishing sixth, winning two finals, that's all good. But we're still not happy with that, still not satisfied."
Scott recalled preliminary final losses past - as a Brisbane Lions player in 1999, and a Collingwood assistant coach in 2007. Both added a steel to the playing group, pre-empting premierships.
"Making a preliminary final is a significant milestone, but it's certainly not one we're happy with," Scott said. "We feel we're building. Four first-year players in the side today. Our list is going to get better next year, not worse."
Petrie praised Ben Brown's marking, especially in the first half, and Kayne Turner "buzzing around and getting under a few Sydney boys' skins". The game's sole schoolboy was down on the stats sheet, but still contributed.
Friday night will hang over them for months; the game will be reviewed, but not until the Kangaroos clock on for the 2015 pre-season in November.
"We've got a real carrot now, something to aim at," Scott said. "We could almost touch it, we were that close to it. While it's bitterly disappointing tonight, we've got to make sure that feeling drives us.
"The players have got to have fresh in their mind why the Swans were better than us tonight, and they've got to go away and improve it."
