Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell spoke to the media post-match:

Sam, what is your emotion like now, can you verbalise what you’re feeling right now?

Sam Mitchell: I guess, disappointment, you know. I’m just really sad this season is over. So many people put in so much to get us to this point, and for it to be finished is ... it’s not a strong enough word, ‘disappointment’. There is obviously some pride and I’m sure all of that will come out over time. But right now, I’m sad for the players, I’m sad for the fans. I think everyone loved watching what we were doing, but it’s not quite good enough. And we have to live with that. That will spur us on for next year.

I’m sure you would have been made aware of Ken Hinkley and James Sicily on the final siren. Is it disappointing to see a rival coach do that after a win and an exchange of words with your captain?

I can only speak on my club’s behalf, and think about how my club, the Hawthorn Football Club, dealt with the post game. We had a very young player who was ... having had some very aggressive words said to him by a much older man, who has been in the game for a long time, and the captain of my club stood up for him. And so I think, it’s really tough to sit here right now, getting rushed by the AFL, “make sure you are at the press conference on time”. So, I understand the emotions at this time of year are really difficult and I’m really proud of our captain, who would have been just as emotional, he was able to stand up and lead in a way that he could be proud of.

Will you seek to speak to Ken after that? How frustrated are you to have that relayed you from a rival coach?

That’s the third question, that’s enough.

How did it feel losing the game like that?

The pain I felt, and the pain I saw in their faces was exactly, it was ... I mean, as players and coaches, but we are all as one. And it’s not just the players, like, I looked at the players, like, I looked at the players all sitting like that and all the staff around the outside and I looked at all the faces and all the red eyes, and it was pain and disappointment and frustration and regret, and pride just all staring straight back at me. It’s a brutal game and we came from a long way back at the start of the year, and if we could have got a bit better a bit quicker a bit earlier, maybe we would win that game. We gave ourselves chances, we just didn’t quite take them. Take enormous pride in the playing group. We’ve had some challenges across the whole season, but across the last few years. I think when our fans go to work on Monday, they will wear the colours and be pretty proud of what we put out there today.

I know it’s still very raw, but what are the areas you feel like you let yourself down tonight? That you lost the game in?

It was a close game. We didn’t control much of the game. They controlled a lot of the territory, centre forward, we were like minus 30 in one area of the ground for contested possessions. So we were not great in a few different areas. But I mean, the technical, tactical aspect of tonight’s game, we gave ourselves chances to win, we found a way, against odds, for the majority. A lot of the game’s on their terms.

Will you use this pain animation going forward and look back on this in the future?

It will be hard not to. I hope not! I think pain is a great motivator. Every training session, you know, when you think about running through the line or finishing your extra rep in the gym and all those things, there’s a little bit of pain that burns into you. I don’t think we were good enough to feel like we could be complacent. We are gonna have to make progress. It’s not a natural, linear progression. I’ve said all year that we are far from a finished product, and we wanted to be in winnable positions more often, and we were, we won a lot of them. But we were in a winnable position today but not quite good enough on the end. So I don’t think motivation, it hasn’t been the trouble for this group, hasn’t been an issue for this group, hasn’t been an issue for this group at all. So I imagine the pain of what I saw looking back at this post game, was a part of that.

You talked about your captain’s actions after the game, but what about his last quarter when he went into attack and had two goals and almost kicked the go-ahead goal, he was huge for you guys in that quarter.

Sic has obviously been playing for a long time, less than 100 per cent on his arm and he will go in for surgery pretty quickly, I imagine. Lots of the players stood up, whether it was Karl Amon, Josh Weddle or Wizard. There’s some young guys and some older guys, and they all were able to have an influence and be really important for us at different stages. Sic’s last quarter was excellent. Dylan Moore hit the post. So it’s all margins.

When you came together as a team, were you able to express that pride that you have in there?

I hope so. I hope I did. (sighs) I think it goes without saying I’m enormously proud. I said to them, it’s your club now. A lot of them helping us run the place and guiding, trying to show them what’s needed to be elite at this level of footy, and they know now. So it’s going to be an interesting experience for us. But we finished sixth, did we? So we are sixth, just in the top third of the ladder. So that’s where we’re at.