Motherwell No.1 Darren Randolph believes the Fir Park side must set their sights on Europe next season.
Despite completing a hugely impressive campaign in which they nailed down a top-six SPL berth, a Co-op Cup semi-final appearance and a Scottish Cup Final place, Well have missed out on a Europa League qualifying slot.
But although the Republic of Ireland international admits that he is gutted there will be no continental action next term he believes that Well can use the experience gleaned from the campaign just gone to do better next term.
He said: "We knew that we were going to have to beat Celtic to get back into the Europa League and that would be a very tough ask.
"But what we have to do now is use the experiences we have picked up this season to help get ourselves back into the European places next time around.
"If you look at how young our side is then we are only going to get better from having played in so many big games
"We had a spell where we were really inconsistent, but we largely came through that, although we all feel we did not do ourselves justice in the final against Celtic.
"Now we have got to make the most of all of that and I am sure that young guys like Jamie Murphy, Chris Humphrey, Stevie Saunders and Tom Hateley will all benefit hugely from the season we have just had."
But with top scorer John Sutton having joined up at Hearts, and out-of-contract midfield pivot Stevie Jennings wanted by Aberdeen – with skipper Stephen Craigan also being pursued by St Mirren – Randolph is worried that Well boss Stuart McCall might see the break up of key components in his promising side.
He admitted: "Obviously it is a blow that Sutty has gone to Hearts, but you have to say good luck to him. Hopefully the gaffer will be able to keep both Jenno and Crags.
"They are two key members of the team and particularly with the skipper, his experience is a huge value to the side with it being so young."
As he reflected on what might have been at Hampden, Randolph, who was on Carling Nations Cup duty with the Republic of Ireland last week, said: "Credit to Celtic, two of their three goals were absolutely superb strikes and as a keeper I don't remember being beaten by much better.
"I guess what was disappointing from our point of view was that offensively we were not as potent as we have been.
"But the manager stressed that we have to use the hurt we felt in the wake of the defeat to drive us on next season and we will do that."