CASEY coach Justin Plapp says his side’s 31-point loss to Footscray in the VFL Grand Final at Etihad Stadium on Sunday was a “hollow feeling”.

The Scorpions led by a goal at half-time, but were blown away by the Bulldogs in the third term, when they booted 8.4 to zip. Although Casey won the final term, booting 4.3 to 1.6, it mattered little in the end.

“We’re disappointed and I spoke to the players about it – you’ve got to be able to play 120 minutes and we weren’t able to do that today,” he told Melbourne TV.  

“We felt we had the game in pretty good shape up until half-time, but we didn’t really see what happened in the third term and then it was a situation where we couldn’t stop it.

“It got to a point where we hoped we could just get through to the end of the third quarter. To their credit, they fought it out and we’re disappointed, but I can’t question the players’ commitment for 90 minutes of the game. The other half an hour, they checked out, so they’ll learn from it.

“The younger kids are going to learn from it and the older blokes, it’s going to sit in their guts for a fair while – I know it is with me. We’ve got to learn and we’ve got to move on – the game doesn’t stop unfortunately and we’ll look at different ways to improve and get better.”

Plapp said it was hard to tell if Footscray’s momentum came on the back of its AFL team the Western Bulldogs’ stunning win over GWS Giants on Saturday night.

“As soon as that ball’s bounced, the emotion to me is irrelevant,” he said.

“I reckon we showed patches where we really challenged them in the first half.

“They were better around the contest and they were able to do it for longer and their ability to get to the ball on the outside really quickly was something we had to be aware of.

“They made all their opportunities count in the third quarter … but all I know is that the players are gutted.”

Despite the disappointing loss on Grand Final day, Plapp said there was plenty to like from the season.

“Two years ago, we finished on the bottom of the ladder and two years later we’re in a Grand Final and our senior team is improving,” he said.

“There is certainly a feeling of people wanting to get better. We know we can get better and I think that we’re on the right track.

“We ended up finishing on top of the [home and away] ladder and won two finals, which we haven’t been able to do for 10 years – and in pretty good fashion. Our development team got into the Grand Final and that’s the first time in the club’s history.

“The ability for the two identities (Melbourne and Casey) to come together – we should be proud of that, but we just couldn’t get the result done.”