The one regret Parker has from 2015 Grand Final aftermath

Corey Parker has passed on some advice to the Fremantle Dockers playing group about handling a Grand Final loss, expressing his one regret from the aftermath of the Brisbane Broncos’ GF defeat in 2015.

Making only their second AFL Grand Final appearance in the club’s 32-year history, the Dockers were on the verge of their first premiership and immortality, taking a 17-point lead with just over four minutes remaining.

But against the experienced Brisbane Lions in their fourth straight Grand Final appearance, Freo conceded the final four goals to lose.

Following Fremantle’s devastating defeat, the Broncos legend reflected on a time when he encountered something similar during the 2015 Grand Final.

Against their rivals in North Queensland, Brisbane were seconds away from winning their first title in nine years. But some Michael Morgan magic on the siren to set Kyle Feldt up for the match tying try alongside a Johnathan Thurston field goal in golden point was enough to snatch the Provan-Summons Trophy.

Speaking about how the Dockers should process the result, the former Queensland and Australian representative noted that each player will process it in their own way but should do so as a group, especially for their young players in their side.

“The individuals actually have to digest it themselves, first and foremost, and that is just with time, this week, next week, three weeks later, four weeks later, they will digest it,” Parker said on SENQ Breakfast.

“I remember myself in ‘15, I'd wake up sporadically in the middle of the night and just couldn't get back to sleep, and I'd be thinking, what ifs? Like, what if I did this different, or what if I did that different or you're playing over scenarios in your head.

“But what does need to happen is next year, they need to go through it, different points of the game, and put it to bed. So, they've gone through it as a team, have a look at where they could've done things slightly different and put it to bed.

“Now the experienced players in that team, the 200 gamers, the 300 gamers, they're fine.

“They understand the mechanisms of what they got to do next year to get back up and go again, but it's the younger players within the group that will need that side of, you know, prompting.

Reflecting on his own handling from the defeat, the forward admitted that in retrospect he should have listened to Wayne Bennett and gone through a proper review of the match.

“I was really stubborn and surprise, surprise, when we first went back to training, Wayne was adamant that we were gonna go through the game, we gotta debrief it and have a look at it, etc,” he continued.

“I was totally against it because I was older and I didn't want to relive those moments again, etc.

“But then you look at it from afar; it's what it does to that younger group who are then able to move on and go from there.

“It's difficult because Ben Hunt has openly come out and said and spoke about the demons he faced, given the fact that he was one that dropped the ball.”

Following that defeat, the Broncos started 2016 strong, having been in the top four for most of the season before finishing fifth.

Their season came to an end in the semi-finals following a 26-20 loss to North Queensland in Townsville. That would be Parker’s 347th and final game for the club.