Stephen Kenny bid farewell to a "brave" Mason Melia as the St Patrick's Athletic manager faced up to the challenge of bouncing back next season after missing out on the European places.
A final-day 0-0 draw at Shelbourne on Saturday, coupled with Bohemians' 4-1 victory at Drogheda United, meant the Saints finished fifth in this season's SSE Airtricity Men's Premier Division and there will be no European football at Richmond Park for the first time in seven years.
But the rebuilding job will be done without their precociously talented teenage top scorer Melia, who will join Tottenham Hotspur in January after his multi-million euro signing for the Premier League club earlier this year.
"Obviously an outstanding young player, one of the best young players that's been in the league really," Kenny told RTÉ soccer correspondent Tony O'Donoghue after the draw at Tolka Park.
"He's led the line brilliantly and he's had an exceptional season. The next chapter in his career, obviously signing for Tottenham and it will be interesting to see (how it goes)."
Rattling through the strikers he has worked with, particularly as an international manager, from Troy Parrott and Evan Ferguson to Adam Idah and Michael Obafemi, Kenny considered how the 18-year-old stacks up against those names when it comes to potential.
"Certainly, he's a tough young player who took a lot of punishment this year but always came back for more," he said.
"So he's brave and he's committed. He's got a lot of very good attributes so we wish him well."
The task of replacing Melia will be more difficult without European football to offer new recruits, although the former Republic of Ireland manager did add that Aidan Keena, who missed chunks of the season through injury, will remain important to the cause.
"When I came in midway through last season, we ended up third from bottom and then we went on this incredible run and games that we qualified for Europe when we had 12 European games in that period," Kenny said.
"But obviously not qualifying for Europe this season is a huge disappointment for everyone at the club, myself included. We're disappointed tonight.
"We'll reflect and assess the situation for sure and obviously we need to improve in a lot of areas. Last season, the half-season we had, we won our final nine games of the season in the league and all of the European games. We saw the best side of our players but I learned more this season probably.
"It was in our hands tonight. We wanted to do it. We were desperate to do it and the players gave everything tonight.
"We could have done it but it wasn't just tonight. We've dropped some points which we should never have dropped this season so we've paid the price for that."
With Bohemians leading at Drogheda, Pat's knew they needed to fashion a winner that did not come at Tolka Park and in the end Shelbourne also had more than their fair share of chances in the game.
"It was the nature of the game in that we needed to win the game so we threw everything at it," Kenny admitted.
"Shels, likewise, they needed to win to finish second and there were chances at both ends and obviously we had quite a few ourselves and we're very disappointed that we couldn't take those opportunities.
"Shelbourne had chances themselves for sure but a couple of big moments for us. Obviously, Luke Turner headed the ball from point blank and it hit our own player Jake Mulraney on the line.
"That was actually more or less in and hit our own player. It was just one of those things that was hugely disappointing.
"Mason was 100% fouled for a penalty but stayed up on his feet. He was clipped but stayed up on his feet and the next challenge which wasn't a penalty but the first one 100% was. But he stayed up. We had other chances to score and so did Shelbourne, they hit the crossbar, so it was end to end."
