Finished with a sense of failure (9)
I believe the answer is:
oversight
'failure' is the definition.
(oversight is a kind of failure)
'finished with a sense' is the wordplay.
'finished' becomes 'over' ('over' can be similar in meaning to 'finished').
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a sense' becomes 'sight' (sight is a kind of sense**).
'over'+'sight'='OVERSIGHT'
'of' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for oversight that I've seen before include "error" , "Slip-up" , "Inadvertent mistake" , "what supervisor has" , "Supervisor's charged with this" .)