Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has never felt more wounded.
But Hinkley says he'll only get better from criticism coming his way after the Power's startling slide from 11 wins and four losses to missing the AFL finals.
"It's as wounded as I have felt, I reckon, in my time in footy," Hinkley said after Friday night's loss to Essendon.
"Wounded. Remember, I'm not dead ... I won't go down easy."
The Essendon defeat consigned Port to miss the finals - from 11-4, they finish 12-10.
"Can you be more disappointed? I doubt that you could," Hinkley said.
"Us as a football department, we have let the football club down.
"We will understand that. We will look at it really, really closely and we will make the decisions that have to be made."
Hinkley said what happened was clear to him: Port's contested work fell away in their late-season slump of six losses in their last seven matches.
"We're a contest and hunt team," he said.
"If you look at the last six weeks, that is where we're broken. Let's not be unsure, we have broken in that space."
The reasons why? He doesn't yet know.
"The why - give me some time," Hinkley said.
"We will work through that with the coaches and we will come up with the why.
"Was it personnel? Was it game style? If it's game style, I will own it. I don't mind the criticism.
"We deserve criticism when we have performed like we did in the last six weeks, I'm not going to avoid it. I look forward to it - it will make me better."
Asked if Port could rapidly get back into finals action next year, Hinkley said: "Six weeks ago, we were 11-4.
"We have got to play six more weeks, that is what we have got to do and we could be anything.
"But we're nothing tonight. That is what we are, we're nothing tonight."
He pledged to push his players even further during next pre-season.
"We have got a lot of work to," he said.
"But will push harder, because we haven't pushed hard enough because we haven't got where we wanted to go. So you have to get harder."
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