Rather than dig a hole in the MCG turf and hide away from everyone, all Ryan Crowley wanted to do when the final siren sounded in the 2013 AFL Grand Final was play another game of football.
Fremantle's tagger extraordinaire admitted post-game he was struggling to 'keep it together' following the Dockers' failed premiership bid and his urge to atone was palpable.
"It's just burning at the moment," said Crowley, who was arguably Fremantle's best player after he claimed yet another high-profile scalp in the form of Hawthorn ball magnet Sam Mitchell.
"The first thing I was thinking was, 'I can't wait to get back into it'.
"It's a terrible feeling - I was going to use another word then.
"Listening to (Hawthorn captain) Luke (Hodge) talk after the game and they were in the same position last year and they went away and tinkered with a few things and they knew they'd be back here.
"So I just hope all the boys are burning like I am and we'll be back next year.
"I hate saying this, but a lot of teams have always said you've got to lose one (grand final) to win one.
"I would never have said that before the game but now we've lost one I'm hoping I can say it now."
After trailing by 23 points at half-time, Crowley said he and his team-mates were confident of hitting back as hard as they did in the third term when they slashed their deficit to as little as three points.
The 29-year-old conceded he found it hard to not get ahead of himself when the Dockers were within touching distance of grabbing the lead while riding a wave of momentum.
"We felt like we were in the game, we just weren't finishing off our opportunities," Crowley said.
"We've been a good second-half team ... but they're a great team and in the last quarter I think we ran out of legs.
"We are real big (on) talking about staying in the moment but it's hard not to think we were coming and it felt like we were coming.
"We were trying to exude that we were coming to them so maybe they got under a bit of pressure."
Crowley believed Fremantle's poor goalkicking was brought about by a bad case of grand final nerves, particularly in the first quarter.
"I've been in the AFL system for 11 years and I was nervous as hell, so I can imagine what it was like for some of our younger guys," Crowley said.
"Never played in front of 100,000 (people before) ... obviously it got to us a little bit because we missed some shots that we would have obviously otherwise kicked and that hurts a little bit."
Norm Smith Medallist Brian Lake played loose man in defence for much of the final quarter and was key to thwarting many of Fremantle's forward forays late on.
It took nearly 20 minutes into the fourth stanza for Dockers coach Ross Lyon to finally make Lake accountable but Crowley explained that occurred because Fremantle were trying to win the ball further afield and required an extra man in that part of the ground.
Meanwhile, Crowley paid tribute to captain Matthew Pavlich for the loyalty he has shown the club throughout the years.
"There were a lot of times when Pav could have easily walked out on the club when we weren't a good side and he's hung around," Crowley said.
"He's really just a great leader, a great captain and a good mate."