Gutted to lose their grip on the W-League premiership, defender Alanna Kennedy says Sydney FC will funnel all their frustration into this weekend's crunch semifinal in Perth.
The Sky Blues had one hand on their third minor trophy entering Sunday's final regular-season clash, needing an away win over struggling Adelaide to overtake Canberra United at the top.
But they faltered at the final hurdle, conceding a quintet of second-half goals in sweltering conditions to fall 5-2.
The capitulation left Dan Barrett's highly rated side with a third-place finish, no home semifinal advantage and a week of soul-searching ahead of the main title push.
"Everyone's a bit gutted," defender Alanna Kennedy told AAP.
"It's always frustrating when a team a bit further down the ladder is getting one up on you, especially in the heat.
"I think we let that get to us, and their direct football was turning us around a lot in transition.
"In hindsight maybe we could have focused on [the premiership] a bit more ... but I think on the day we were just outplayed."
The team spent Monday recovering but return to training on Tuesday to re-focus ahead of Saturday's sudden-death playoff against Perth, who beat Western Sydney 1-0 on Sunday to sneak into second and claim hosting rights.
Sydney lost 1-0 to the Glory in December but were missing Kennedy's Matildas teammate and reigning Asian women's player of the year Caitlin Foord for that match.
With Foord and a fit squad available, Kennedy expected the upset to galvanise the team.
"Sunday's loss will be enough to give us the right attitude going into the game and make sure we don't have the same feeling of losing grip of something that's so close," said Kennedy, an experienced W-League campaigner who has a premiership and championship with Sydney and a premiership with Perth.
"As well, we always knew going into Sunday's game that we were in the finals ... we were lucky knowing we still had the semis to go.
"Now it's all or nothing, so it's always going to be a different mind frame.
"We'll be ready to go."
Minor premiers Canberra United will host fourth-placed Melbourne City in the other semifinal on Sunday.