Inside the Geelong rooms after Grand Final loss to Brisbane Lions

As a battered and bruised Jeremy Cameron walked out with his right arm in a sling and a can of beer in his left hand, he suddenly stopped and smiled.

Smiling was probably the last thing he was thinking about doing given what he’d been through over the previous couple of hours but his two-and-a-half year old daughter Macey had just dived under the barrier and was running towards him.

She was blissfully unaware of the horror show her Dad’s team had just been through and momentarily gave Cameron the chance to slip into father-mode. A little bit of chasey followed before a request for some hot chips.

Shaun Mannagh and Jack Martin both had toddlers in their arms while Rhys Stanley was also getting some love from the little people in his life.

Nearby Max Holmes was in tears, being comforted by his mum, Olympian Lee Naylor, who knows a thing or two about the highs and lows of professional sport.

Joel Selwood, who was supposed to present the premiership cup if they’d won, was in the corridor consoling his old teammates.

Most of the Cats had already showered and were keen to get out of dodge but Bailey Smith wasn’t one of them. He was still in his full kit, chatting to friends and family.

Behind closed doors coach Chris Scott had praised his team for putting themselves in the position again to be devastated.

That was the hymn book the only three players who fronted the media afterwards were singing.

“We’re proud of consistently trying to get to this position,” Mark Blicavs said.

Midfielder Tom Atkins said: “We don’t apologise for putting ourselves at the pointy end every year, I can still remember Joel (Selwood) saying that when he was captain and it still rings true.

“There has to be 17 losers, times like these sometimes you wish you missed finals but we don’t want to feel that way. We want to put ourselves up there every year, we want to compete and give ourselves the opportunity to achieve greatness.”

Captain Patrick Dangerfield carried his team on his back in the preliminary final against Hawthorn but he was a shadow of that player eight days on.

Rumours of illness had been circling around but Dangerfield wouldn’t have a bar of it, he’s a no excuses operator.

“It’s a ruthless game, there are no excuses from me or anyone, we just couldn’t quite get it done,” he declared.

Dangerfield expanded further on Scott’s message, saying he was proud of the whole Geelong organisation for once again “giving it a crack”.

“In many ways it would be way easier to finish in the middle of the table but it’s not really in our DNA,” he said.

“It’s to give it a crack every year, risk the ultimate disappointment for the ultimate adulation and feeling of completeness but it wasn’t quite that this year.

“It’s a ruthless sport, it’s the best sport in the world, I think we can all agree on that and you do risk the devastation but it is worth putting yourself out there and giving it a crack.

“The hard part is there are no guarantees in any given season, everyone starts again from the blocks, just because you have had a reasonable season one year there are no guarantees the next.

“I think it is important that you sit in it for a little bit, as difficult as it may be, the togetherness piece is really important and it is something we have done really well as an organisation regardless of the result, particularly when we have lost big games of footy.

“The club has always given us a great opportunity to threaten to compete and I’m sure they’ll give us that opportunity again.

“It is going to hang around regardless, that’s the feeling you get when you make it to the last Saturday in September and you don’t quite get there.”

Asked what the Cats needed to add for next year, like another Bailey Smith-type move, Dangerfield said: “It’s not all doom and gloom in terms of the bigger picture, in terms of what we need to go after, what we need to improve.

“It’s refining what we have already done and we’ve done it so much of the year, unfortunately we weren’t able to do it today.”

And then the Geelong skipper was off, searching for his kids and that magic tonic.