Adelaide coach Neil Craig has refused to blame the contentious free kick conceded by champion full-back Ben Rutten in the closing seconds of Saturday night's semi-final against Collingwood for the Crows' heartbreaking defeat.
Rutten was deemed by field umpire Shane McInerney to have held the arm of his direct opponent John Anthony at a marking contest, conceding a free kick that Anthony duly converted with 20 seconds left on the clock to deliver the Magpies a famous five-point win.
Rutten, Craig and everyone associated with Adelaide is entitled to feel hard done by, but afterwards there were no recriminations.
"It really doesn't interest me," said Craig. "I don't know what the media will do with it, but it's of no interest to me whatsoever."
"Let's say it's an incorrect decision, it doesn't worry me because I can show you 30 errors that we made which were basic errors and we're not going down that path as a football club - relying on one decision to win us a final."
Craig said that in a tight finish, the Crows simply weren't able to get the job done, but he paid credit to his players' fightback after appearing down and out the final change coming off a third quarter surge from the Pies which produced a six-goal turnaround.
"We were in a fair bit of trouble in that third quarter, 10 points down at three-quarter time," he said.
"Their effort to get back in the game and to give themselves a chance to win it, it'll be something that while it doesn't mean too much to them at the moment, obviously, it'll be something which we'll call upon for the future."
"I need to recognise their fight."
Craig said momentum swings are inevitable and it wouldn't have been realistic to expect his players to just keep building on their own great start to the match which earned them a 29-point lead at quarter-time.
When the inevitable fightback came, he said his players just couldn't get hold of the ball in the third term, something he attributed to a lack of mental hardness rather than any tactical flaw.
"We just can't have those sort of lapses," he said.
"I'm not sitting here and saying we didn't fire a shot in the second half - I thought our capacity to regroup towards the end of that third quarter and to go on with it in the last quarter gives me a lot of hope for the future."
"We just need to keep working hard with our game plan and putting experience into Dangerfield, Tippett, Otten, Mackay, all those type of players."
"We've got to make sure we're clear about where we're going and the progress we're making and we'll do that because to build something great takes a long time."