A WEEK after booting a career-best seven goals against the Brisbane Lions, Geelong key forward Tom Hawkins had a night to forget in the Cats' 36-point qualifying final loss to Hawthorn at the MCG.
Manned up by Brian Lake, the spearhead managed to get his hands on the ball plenty of times on Friday night, but just couldn't hold his marks and finished with only one goal, which came after a contentious free kick.
On a night where Geelong could manage just 10 goals from 52 inside 50s, the lack of output from Hawkins was keenly felt.
"I thought at times he did everything right except hang onto the ball at the end," Geelong coach Chris Scott said.
"You have those nights, but I still think that we're good enough to win games against good opposition when he doesn't have his best night.
"Our forward line didn't function well enough."
Scott said the Cats had plenty of chances to kick a winning score against the Hawks in a game that was in the balance well into the final term.
"Particularly early, it is a game of inches sometimes," he said.
"We went inside 50 and had free targets, missed them or couldn't hang onto the mark, and the ball bounces out the other side pretty quickly."
Friday night's loss means the Cats will now have to prevail in two sudden-death contests just to make the Grand Final, starting with a semi-final clash against either North Melbourne or Essendon next Friday night at the MCG.
If they win that, they will have to travel to either Sydney or Perth for a preliminary final against the Swans or the Dockers.
It's a daunting task, but nobody at Geelong is about to give up on the season.
"The positive is that we get another crack next week," star midfielder Jimmy Bartel said.
"As far as we're concerned, we still need to win three games to win a premiership.
"There's a lot of positives out of the game. We can't drag our tails around all week.
"We've got either Essendon or the Kangaroos to shape up for on Friday night."
The last team to make the Grand Final after losing a qualifying final was West Coast in 2006.
Nevertheless, Scott is adamant that the rest of his players are just as optimistic as Bartel.
"We're probably in a similar boat to last year," Scott said.
"The equation for us is simple. We've got to win the next three games.
"It's a harder route than the one we could've taken had we won tonight, but I don't have any concerns whatsoever that our playing group will be flattened by this and won't respond.
"I'm supremely confident that we'll bounce back and we'll have a really good preparation, and we'll play as well as we possibly can next Friday night.
"We would've loved to have won the game, and a lot of people outside Geelong will say, 'If you don't win in the first week of the finals it's a harder route and you can't win it from there.'
"That's OK. They can say that, and we understand that it's harder. But it's far from impossible.
"We will hurt for a couple of days, but we'll be back on Monday ready to prepare for a big game on Friday night."
While Hawkins struggled, Joel Selwood again displayed his penchant for stepping up in September.
The Geelong skipper finished with 31 disposals, nine clearances and three goals, and Scott described his performances as "outstanding".
"The numbers really stack up, but it was just the contest work for us in the coaches' box that really stood out," Scott added. "He led from the front.
"He'll be devastated tonight, as we all will for a day or two. But that's all it is – a day or two and then we bounce back."
Bartel was also in awe of the way Selwood performed on the big stage.
"He was unbelievable," Bartel said. "It was the ultimate captain's game tonight.
"I guess we probably let him down a bit."
