The Eagles were outplayed at AAMI Park on Saturday night, but other than less time to recover from their preliminary final victory over Hume City, Chatzitrifonos admitted the better team won on the night.

"They looked far fresher, stronger, sharper - all the parts of the game that you need to be on top of, they certainly were," he said.

"They were by far the better team on the day."

But the coach admitted he was surprised by the manner of the defeat.

"I didn't think that we'd lose as convincingly as that. That surprised me," Chatzitrifonos said.

He refused to blame inexperience for his side failing on the main stage, giving credit to pair Daniel Visevic and Antun Kovacic, two he believed were amongst his teams best.

But his team's overall performance, particularly going forward, was the most disappointing.

"We had no cohesion in our game," Chatzitrifonos said.

"We had no interplay in our game."

The coach said he hoped his team's successful season would be remembered rather one performance, albeit in the final game of the year.

"I hope the performance today doesn't overshadow what has been a great year for us," he said.

Richmond had two penalty shouts turned down in the second period, a handball shout and a tackle on striker Jesse Krncevic, but Chatzitrifonos felt the penalty awarded to Gully was "very harsh".

Captain Tsiaras echoed similar credits to the Cavaliers.

"Tonight we were just flat and they deserved to win," he said.

"We won the minor premiership and made the final but tonight pretty much overshadows everything. It's a tough loss."