A shattered Geelong coach Mark Thompson put the blame for the Cats' shock AFL grand final loss to Hawthorn on Saturday totally at the inaccurate feet of his forwards after watching his team somehow lose by 26 points despite enjoying a staggering 19 more forward entries than the Hawks.
The Cats - who came into the match having lost just one game all season and having won 42 of their past 44 matches overall - went inside their forward 50 on 62 occasions to Hawthorn's 43, won the all-important clearances 41-27 and just shaded the Hawks in contested possessions and overall possessions yet wasted all their good work in midfield by booting a wasteful 11.23 for the game.
That total included 1.9 in the second term as Brad Ottens somehow managed to run into an open goal and miss while Cameron Mooney missed another shot from the edge of the goalsquare and hit the post from another regulation shot early in the second half.
Thompson said the Cats forwards badly let down the work of their defenders and midfielders - as he singled out full-back Matthew Scarlett and champion midfielder Gary Ablett for special praise for their great performances in defeat.
Scarlett kept champion Hawthorn spearhead Lance 'Buddy' Franklin to just two goals, while Ablett had 34 possessions and continued to try and lift his flagging side right until the final siren.
"Our defence was fantastic, our midfield reasonable but to score just 11 goals from 62 opportunities (inside 50) is just not good enough," Thompson said.
"We just didn't make the most of our opportunities."
Thompson described the entire day and indeed entire season as 'a wasted opportunity' as the Cats blew their best chance of winning back-to-back flags for the first time since 1952.
And he admitted he felt sorry for Ablett, who like his famous father Gary during the Cats' 1989 grand final loss to Hawthorn - when Ablett senior won the Norm Smith Medal for best afield in a losing side - could hardly have done more to lift his side to victory.
"He (Ablett) just looked like he wanted to win so much, I just wish he'd had a few friends (team-mates) in that frame of mind," Thompson said.
Thompson said the defeat was even harder to take given that so much had gone right for the Cats not only during the season but also during the grand final itself.
"We did a lot of things quite well as a team (on Saturday) and if we sat here and said we would keep Franklin to just two goals and (Cameron) Ling did a great job on (Hawks skipper Sam) Mitchell and we had a lot of forward entries but we just didn't play consistently well enough as a team."
Thompson denied his team had 'choked' under the pressure of being expected to win successive flags after such a dominant season but admitted that perhaps the occasion had got to some of his players before vowing his team would hit back hard next season.