“I think it was just disappointing that we couldn’t finish the game [against Jets] off. It’s been a tough season. It’s a tight season [and] there’s a lot of good sides [so] you have to be at your best every week, but I think we’ve learned and developed a lot as a group.”

With those three losses in a row, the Reds bombed out of finals contention before their last match against the Roar, which they won 1-0 playing as the reactive side against a team pushing to finish as Premiers.

What has been learned

The biggest learning curve by far for Adelaide has been the different challenges that come with performing well and obtaining positive results. There is always talks of potential first finals appearance every season, but United usually ended up as second-to-last or wooden spoon winners.

However, records started to be broken – three consecutive clean sheets in round four, unbeaten after five matches – people started to take notice in them and expected more. Suddenly, this season was the first time that finals could be a reality.

Unfortunately, the pressure and expectation to perform well might have gotten the better of the young team.

Georgia Campagnale rued the missed chances but is positive that the squad will learn from this experience.

“Throughout training, Ivan [Karlović] would say that if we continue to work hard [and] stick to the principles that we set at the start of the week, we would get success, and we did get a lot of success,” the defender said.

“We’re still a young group and maintaining that high level of intensity throughout the whole season is what we need to learn now, so we don’t let [ourselves] down and not make finals [again].”

Where to next

Once again, Adelaide’s ultimate goal of making an inaugural finals appearance will have to wait for another year. Whilst it was bittersweet, the squad can take pride in the fact that they have put up the best performance in the club’s history.

Hopefully, the squad will build on this experience and it will only be onwards and upwards from here.