Unfortunately, Mitch Duncan’s career-best-performance of 37 touches was overshadowed with disappointment after the Cats fell away from their lead against Hawthorn in the second term.

At halftime, the Cats were exactly 100 disposals and 31 points ahead but unluckily this wasn’t enough to keep the Hawk’s from taking flight.  

“We played really good footy in the first half and then they pretty much outran us, we might have ran out of legs, but that’s definitely not an excuse,” Duncan told Cats TV minutes after the final siren.

“We left our words in the change rooms at half time, we were saying ‘we can’t take the foot off the pedal now there’s still a job to be done’, and unfortunately we didn’t do that.”

Taking the positive approach, Duncan believes the Cats will benefit from Saturday night’s loss at the MCG, as they head towards another grueling finals’ series.  

“We’re going to learn a lot from tonight and then going forward we’ve got to improve… that’s the benchmark now for us against Hawthorn, so we’ve got a lot of challenges ahead,” Duncan said.   

However, Duncan says the Cats won’t waste time dwelling on the past and licking their wounds. Instead the group will focus on winning the battle that lies ahead.

This Saturday night, the Cats will stage their last game of the home and away season when they meet the Lions for Round 23 at Simonds Stadium.

“… Now we have to come out and win against Brisbane,” Duncan said.

“The results of other games could disadvantage us, you just don’t know, so we’ve got to go out there next week and give 110 percent.”

Catch more from the talented midfielder by clicking on the video above.