“PURE hurt”.

That’s how Jordan Lewis described the feeling, shortly after Melbourne was beaten after the final siren by a Zach Tuohy goal.

The Irishman marked before the final siren and kicked truly after it, giving Geelong a two-point win at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday night to break the hearts of the red and blue faithful.

Lewis said it was a loss that would cut deep. 

“Not too many people said much five minutes [after the match], but we played well for the majority of the game, but just that last quarter – it’s what good sides do, they find a way, and Geelong did that,” he told Melbourne Media.

“We didn’t have enough time in that last quarter to really suck some time out of the clock. There were little moments in that last quarter that we’d like to take back.

“It was in that last five-minute patch, where they scored a goal and we had the ball down in our half. Then they had that one last roll of the dice and managed to take three marks and ended up with a goal.”

Although Melbourne led for most of the match, Lewis said it was hard to find too many positives from the result.

“It’s a pretty hard loss to take when we played pretty well for three quarters,” he said.

“We’ll hurt today and tomorrow, and as athletes, you’ve got to move on and look ahead. But we still need to learn from that game in the last quarter.

“Why did they get back in the game? Could we have done anything better structurally? By Tuesday, we’ll move on to Adelaide.”

He said coach Simon Goodwin was simply “disappointed” with the last quarter.

“They kicked five goals and dominated around the ball with clearances and contested possessions, and we felt like we were defending for the whole quarter,” Lewis said.

“It was one of those ones where we needed to become better in the last quarter, when the game’s on the line.

“We need to really compete and make good decisions when we’ve got the ball in hand and work out ways to suck some more time out of the clock.”

With Lewis set to play his 300^th AFL game against Adelaide at Adelaide Oval next round, the four-time premiership said it wouldn’t be a distraction as he prepares for another critical game in Melbourne’s season.

“It’s not really about me and it never has been with milestone games – and anyone that plays milestone games,” he said.

“It’s more important that we feel the hurt from this game and go over to Adelaide, because we need to win.

“It’s still really close and we missed an opportunity today, so we need to go over to Adelaide and not really worry about the milestone – but we need to get the four points.”