Cats president Frank Costa and chief executive Brian Cook followed their post-match ritual of heading to the Cats rooms in order to greet the players as they left the field. The only problem was they started their walk to the lower levels of Colonial Stadium with about 15 seconds remaining on the clock.

``We were completely unaware of the Peter Riccardi goal after the siren which gave us the win,'' Costa said.

``We always go to the rooms about two minutes before the end of the game and yesterday we waited a bit longer because of the tension. But when (Matthew) Lappin got that 50m penalty - which I thought was pretty soft - and goaled with 16 seconds left, we went feeling pretty lousy.

``We were walking around and we heard a big roar and we thought Carlton had won the game . . . and then we heard the song.

``I said to Cooky `That's our song - they only play the song of the winning side' and that was when we heard what had happened.''

While disappointed at missing out on seeing the winning goal, Costa said it would never happen again.

``We will only leave early if the game is four or five goals, one way or the other,'' he said.

``We certainly won't do it again if there's only a kick in it.

``We were disappointed, but we were still thrilled that Geelong won. I'd rather Geelong win the game and miss out on seeing it, than not win at all.''