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BRENDAN Fevola was back to his prolific best with eight goals against Hawthorn on Saturday. It's just unfortunate that his last kick will be the one that everyone remembers.

With his side five points down and barely a minute left on the clock Fevola out-marked his opponent about 20m out on a 45-degree angle at the MCG's city end only to see his set shot swing late and graze the inside of the right-hand post.

"I went back normally. Obviously when I have a shot I don't think I'm going to miss – I always think I'm going to kick it," Fevola said after the four-point loss.

"I had a look at the clock and it was the 31-minute mark, but I just went back and went through my normal routine and kicked it. I thought it went in actually, but it just nicked the side of the post and obviously my heart sank after that.

"I still can't believe I missed it, but that's footy I guess – what can you do?"

Fevola, who shortly after the match was still trying to stem the blood from a broken nose suffered during the second quarter, took some solace in his own return to form.

"Obviously I haven't been kicking too straight, but it was good to get a couple in," he said.

"I just think our midfielders – Juddy and Murph and those blokes – there was a lot of space up forward which helped me and the way they kicked the ball in [really helped]."

But his own performance wasn't the only reason for optimism according to Fevola.

"For Pauly Bower to play on Lance Franklin – he's probably the best player in the competition – and to keep him to two goals is just super," he said.

"To match their toughness and their hard running – we've got to look at some positives and really go forward from here.

"We're really disappointed we lost, but we can look at some positives in that we matched the reigning premier. We don't want to drop off from here – hopefully we can just build on it."

The loss capped an emotional week for the Blues, who had to cope with the passing of former president Richard Pratt on Tuesday. Fevola admitted Pratt hadn't been far from the players' thoughts throughout.

"We spoke about it before the game and we said we'd play every game and sort of dedicate this year to him," he said.

"I just said to the boys at three-quarter time, 'Let's think of the big fella upstairs'.

"They kicked the first couple of goals and we responded. I think they were three or four goals up at the 20-minute mark and for our boys to play the way they did and get the ball down to the forwards was good."