Micky Harte drops hint on Derry future after 'disappointing' exit at Croker

And while his future will be under scrutiny during the post-mortem of an underachieving season, the Oak Leaf boss admits he will 'optimistically' start planning for the future regardless.​

Harte’s men were billed as contenders before the 2025 Championship campaign after romping to the Division 1 NFL title with victory in the final over Dublin in March.

There was a feeling of unfulfilled potential after that campaign came to an abrupt and uninspiring end as the 47,406 crowd were subjected to a really poor spectacle by both teams.

There will be regrets but Harte's not a man who will focus on the past or those humbling defeats to Donegal in the Ulster SFC before Galway, Armagh in the group stages and finally Kerry who were far from convincing themselves.

The Kingdom still had enough in the tank to dispose of a tired looking Derry side playing in their third game in 15 days which ultimately took its toll.

"Thank God I am able to leave things down. I will be hugely disappointed and forever there will be a degree of disappointment in the days that you lose and believe that you could do better." said Harte afterwards.

"So, yes, I’ll always be disappointed about that result and that outcome but pretty much an optimistic person and [I'll] look ahead."The past can’t be changed, we can try and do something different for the future, but I take life on a day to day basis like that."

“Obviously, if you win Division One of the league, that's something to be happy about. Disappointing in Ulster in the Championship, disappointing in the round-robin games. But the fact that we survived to reach a quarter-final here today, I suppose, makes it reasonable as well. But obviously, highly disappointing

“We did intend to be back for a few more games here, at least one, maybe two, and that's not happening.

“And that's very disappointing because it's a long time until the beginning of the new season and it looks so far away now for everybody involved.“But that's life and sport now. It's going to be over in the first half of the year.

"As you would be well aware, it's a very sombre dressing room that we're in now. It's been a challenge to get back to the level that we had in the National League."We took a few games in the last few weeks to get a bit of confidence back again and I thought that confidence was very much back on the back of the result against Mayo.“But look, we were meeting an established team who are no strangers to all-Ireland quarter-finals, semi-finals and winning them.

“So we had a tough battle out there and I felt that we did well up to the 60th minute or so, keeping in touch and when you consider that we held David Clifford and Sean O'Shea a pretty meagre return for their standards.“But I suppose we weren't efficient enough and clinical enough ourselves and it's not hard to guess that 10 points won't win many Championship matches in Croke Park.”