Sheer disappointment was etched across the North Melbourne captain's face when kangaroos.com.au spoke to him after the match. And, where his body language normally exudes an upbeat confidence, Harvey looked as flat as any player in North's sombre changerooms beneath the MCG.
It was no surprise then when he told us Sunday's loss ranked among the worst of his 16-season career.
"It's right up there. It was a game today to see where we were at because they beat us pretty comfortably last time and we thought we'd improved a fair bit since then," Harvey said.
"I'm not saying we haven't improved, but if you go by today we certainly haven't. It's just very disappointing."
Harvey said he felt North was right in the game at quarter-time when it trailed Collingwood by 16 points, but had - as it had in several games earlier this season - blown a chance to be closer with its 1.5 return for the quarter.
However, Harvey said North's lack of fight after that had been "un-North-Melbourne-like".
"Overall they just mauled us," he said.
"I think they won every quarter quite comfortably. I don't think one player was outstanding for them today. I think they had 22 pretty good contributors.
"But serving up what we served up today is not good enough."
Harvey said although the team review of the game was going to be hard to sit through, the chance to learn from watching Collingwood would be invaluable.
"They're one of the best teams, if not the best team, in the competition, so we'll take a lot of things out of the way they go about it," he said.
Harvey had just emerged from a team meeting when we spoke with him. He said coach Brad Scott's main message to the Kangaroos' players was that they had to respond to the loss, starting with their game against the Western Bulldogs next Sunday.
"The message from Brad and the message I'll be drumming into the boys is it's how we bounce back from this," Harvey said.
"It's a huge challenge for us. Everyone's going to knock us around during the week but if we respond in the right way we'll be all right next week."
By the end of our short interview, Harvey seemed to have regained at least some of his usual positivity.
Asked how keen North would be to redeem itself against the Bulldogs, there was obvious passion in his voice when he responded.
"If we could play a game right now we'd probably want to play," he said.
"The key message is how we respond from it. I think as a whole our group is mentally tough and will bounce back."
