If Sydney captain Callum Mills could find one ray of light out of last week's confirmation he'd miss the first month of the new AFL season, surely it had to be that he's become practiced at the art of coping with disappointment.
What choice has he had? Over the last year-and-a-half, there's been a catalogue of it.
There was the hijinx at the Swans' end-of-season "Mad Monday" celebrations in 2023, at which he sustained a serious shoulder injury that kept him on the sidelines until Round 19 last year, his initial return date also aborted after a calf niggle.
Then there was a hamstring injury in the qualifying final against GWS, just his seventh appearance of the season, which cost him a place in Sydney's preliminary final and Grand Final line-ups. And then, of course, his team's crushing Grand Final defeat against Brisbane.
Now, it's plantar fasciitis, scans last Monday confirming a tear which will keep him out until after Sydney's first three games. You could forgive him going into something of a spiral, particularly seeing as upon his return, Mills will have played just seven of a potential 29 games since being appointed the Swans' sole captain for 2024.
But Mills won't allow himself to be dragged into the doldrums. That was something teammate Joel Amartey observed publicly last week. "He's always optimistic. He's back on the horse again already, and he's working to get back to that play day," Amartey said.
"You never don't see him. He doesn't hide away. When he's injured, he fronts up in front of everyone and helps us through. There's a lot more to footy than just what happens on the field. There's the other six days of the week where you need your captain and leaders to help everyone through, and that's what he does day in, day out."
Like when Mills was part of the AFL captains' media day last week, even as he knew the foot injury wasn't going to offer him the start to the season for which he'd hoped. "Obviously, it wasn't a great year for me last year," he told ESPN. "But I've been able to have a full pre-season this time, it (the injury) has only reared its head in the last week or so."
And when the skipper does make it back out on to the park, he'll be presiding over a team with a considerable millstone dangling around its neck.
Sydney has now lost its past four Grand Finals, three of them by 60 points or more. Indeed, last September's debacle against Brisbane might have been a carbon copy of the 2022 belting against Geelong, or the smashing at the hands of Hawthorn 10 years previously, the game as good as done and dusted by half time.
What happened?
"We just didn't rock up, really," Mills shrugs. "We didn't play the team football and the defence that we know how to, and it really hurt us. And being injured and sitting helplessly in the stands made it, for Mills, just that little bit worse.
"It was obviously hard when it happened. And then coming in and reviewing. But we've done that, seen what it was, and we're not hiding from it. Now it's our job to play the footy we want to play."
Except this year, under a new coach. Dean Cox is hardly reinventing the wheel in his first season in charge post-John Longmire, but the change of voice, Mills concedes, has probably made the task of fronting up again after yet more Grand Final disappointment, that little bit easier.
"It's been great," he says. "We obviously know him well, so it's not like you have to build a relationship with him. But he's tinkered with a few things and brought his flavour to it. Ultimately, it's not too different (to Longmire). But it's just a new voice and the fresh ideas, and we're really looking forward to it."
It's easy to view Sydney's 2025 as a result of the Grand Final belting as a case of anything achieved being irrelevant until the Swans make it back on to the equivalent stage. But that's also a potential trap for which Mill says he and his teammates aren't falling.
"You've still got to play well over the home and away season," he says. "It's really important because the competition is so even that we put our best foot forward there all year. Then, if and when it arises, we'll take care of it and play it as it comes."
Okay, but surely Sydney can't ask for greater motivation than having been humiliated again on the biggest stage of all?
"No, you can't, I guess," Mills agrees. "But also, that's life. You can't win everything. We're just striving to be better than we were. Unfortunately, we've had to learn lessons. Okay, you've been in some losing ones. You can either take that and do something about it, or you can sit on your laurels and feel sad. So we're looking forward to doing some stuff about it."
And hopefully after a well-overdue change of luck, with the Sydney captain also actually doing some of that stuff.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.