A thrilling running goal from GWS young gun Devon Smith in the final minute dashed any hopes the Dogs had of securing a fitting farewell for retiring star Daniel Giansiracusa and also the eighth win for the season that would have equalled last year's tally.

Despite the win-loss record, the Dogs finished the season one spot higher than in 2013 (15^th up to 14th, but three percentage points lower) and McCartney would not accept that his club had taken a backward step.

However he admitted the loss was significant and he expected those outside the club to have questions about the direction of the team.

"I think tonight probably puts bit of a dent in it," said McCartney, putting the loss into the context of the whole season. "It's one game, but it would have been nice to finish with a better performance.

"If there was a mistake to be made tonight, we found it. We even invented a few new ones. It was a winnbale game and we didnt get it.

"We were a more experienced team out there today, they were missing a lot of really important players. We had a few missing, but we should have been able to conjure something up."

The Dogs came back from 33 points down in the second quarter and had several chances to steal the game when scores were tied in the final minutes, including a sprayed shot from the boundary line from Giansiracusa and a dropped uncontested mark from Jake Stringer, who was one of the Dogs' best with four goals.

Ryan Griffen produced a mighty game with 38 disposals, 13 clearances, 11 inside 50s and a goal. However the young Giants were too good when it mattered, converting their opportunities better to win 18.7 (115) to  15.19 (109).

"There will be a lot of opinions and emotional reactions to what we dished up tonight as a club," McCartney said. "There are some areas in our game where we clearly haven't improved to the level we would have liked," he said.

"There are some areas of the ground that we would have liked to have seen some improvement and that hasn't happened. But at the same time, we are really getting the benefits now of getting game time into some really talented players.

He later added: "what might not have looked great tonight, is not what we are going to be".

"We'll fight our way out of this, and we are going to get better."

The Dogs won the clearances 48-31 and had 23 more inside 50s, yet again failed to kick a winning score, despite the best efforts of Stringer and Stewart Crameri, who kicked four goals in the second half.

McCartney said it was important the club used the off-season to find an answer to the forward problems that have been ongoing throughout his tenure at the Dogs. The third-year coach has recorded 20 wins from 66 games.

"We quite clearly need to find a way to take some more marks of the contested variety inside forward 50," he said. "Just to take that grab, and… as much as that, you just need someone to mark the ball down the line for you," he said.

"We'll keep looking, we are entering a really competitive part of the year now. There are 10 clubs on the lookout for talent and we are one of them, and we'll be at work at 10am in the morning."