Justin Longmuir was just four minutes away from making history as the inaugural Fremantle Premiership coach, the reward of 15 seasons of hard work and toil as a player and head coach.
Longmuir opened his post-game press conference by describing himself and his players as "devastated".
"There's no sugar coating it," Longmuir explained.
Like I said to (the players) after the game, I've never felt so disappointed, but there's this massive sense of pride in the group. We came to play, we executed the plan, we created so many opportunities for ourselves. I thought we competed our backsides off all day.
"There were times where we got challenged throughout the game but responded and put ourselves in such a great position to go on and win it. We just didn't play out the 120 minutes.
"We were clearly playing against one of the best teams of all time.
"They just found something and we didn't have an answer. I was just so proud of the way we competed all day."
Longmuir was asked about a post-game moment in which he brought the playing squad together on the field and urged them to "have each other's backs" through this trying period.
"Players will go over in their heads every contest, every missed shot, every missed mark, a mistake behind the ball which maybe cost a goal, a time where they could have tackled. Don't be too hard on yourself and beat yourself up too much.
"We play an imperfect game that is full of mistakes, and every game they've played across the journey of their football careers would have had plenty of mistakes. It just feels a bit more important right now because of what was on the line, but don't be too hard on yourself.
"If we won, we would have won together, but we lost, so we lose together."
The 45-year-old former Docker couldn't find a great deal of fault with his players' performance on Saturday, but conceded that the Lions were a little more clinical.
"There has been times across the finals where we haven't quite capitalised on our field positions," he explained.
"There were periods where we didn't have the composure forward of centre to make the most of our field position through the day and possibly, if we have had have, we would have been able to put a bit more of a gap on them. Clearly we didn't handle the last four minutes well. There were some things we obviously didn't get right with our structure.
"That was disappointing because we've been good in those types of moments all year and we've been great at finishing off games and implementing our close game scenarios.
"Credit to Brisbane who never gave up and I think it was more to do with how good they were in the contest late.
"To lose a Grand Final like that, there'll be a million different situations where you think 'that could have gone our way', 'the ball could have bounced our way and not theirs', but I think every game has that."
One of the great legacies to come out of this Grand Final will be the poorly-timed use of Fremantle's iconic 'Wharfie Time', which inspired the Lions players to overcome a 17-point deficit with only a few minutes to go, but Longmuir implored the club to continue with it in 2027.
"Of course I would," Longmuir replied when asked if he wants Fremantle to stick with the crowd-rousing gimmick.
"That didn't have any impact on the game. Did Charlie's (Cameron) Country Road celebrations have any impact on the game? Probably not. I don't think we can put it down to that.
"One of the best teams of all times had their backs to the wall and we just didn't have an answer for that."
The Lions' current history-making dynasty began with an agonising four-point Grand Final loss to Collingwood in 2023 that has been credited with driving their hunger throughout the subsequent years, and Longmuir sees his Dockers in a similar position where they have built the foundations to go one step further next year.
"Our journey is not finished, and what we set out to achieve is not finished," he declared.
"We want to make sure that we emulate someone like (Brisbane) and make sure we're putting ourselves up to contend year in, year out. It's something we've never done as a football club but I think with the way we've built the list and the culture, that's what we can set out to do.
"There are no guarantees and everyone starts at zero next year, but I feel like we've got the capabilities in terms of character and talent within our organisation to be able to do that."