The coach believed his troops had played “really good one-day cricket” despite their failure to reach the finals.

“But we had a poor game against Victoria and lost a couple of close ones and we were out,” Marsh said.

“In Sydney, the wickets have a lot of moisture in them early, and we just didn’t deal with that as well as we would have liked, so we got off to some slow starts.”

The one-run loss to Queensland in their opening match proved to be pivotal for Marsh and his Tigers, when losing quick wickets contributed to the Duckworth-Lewis result. 

But with Hamish Kingston (eight wickets at 28), Simon Milenko (seven wickets at 30.42), Cam Boyce (nine wickets at 26), Cameron Stevenson (5-32 on debut), Alex Doolan (362 runs at 120.66) and Dom Michael (252 runs at 42), there were plenty of positives.

“But ultimately we weren’t good enough,’’ Marsh added.

He was full of praise for Doolan, who finished third on the run-scoring list ahead of the finals.

Marsh said the middle-order batsman had worked hard on his sweep and pull shots.

Doolan was also happy with his output, believing he is going as well when he played Test cricket in 2014. 

He echoed Marsh’s sentiments that the feeling in the Tigers’ camp was one of disappointment.

”We played some really, really good cricket and when you miss finals you can sometimes sit back and say were lucky to be in contention, but I think this year we can count ourselves a little bit unlucky not to still be competing in the tournament,’’ he said.

“It is tough to put my finger on one thing, but I did work really hard in the pre-season and challenged myself to do some different things and so far that is paying off, but we are very early in the season, and there is still a big season ahead for me personally and the team.

”I had to fight a few demons to get back and believe that I am still good enough (after being dropped last summer), but I managed to get over that and I am in a really good space with my game at the moment.

“I’ve still got eyes on a really big year ahead, and hopefully that leads to success.”

Tasmania will open its Sheffield Shield summer against reigning champions Victoria at the MCG in a day/night encounter from Tuesday.