Fremantle Dockers coach Justin Longmuir admits his players couldn’t handle the pressure from Geelong Cats

Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir has declared his team wasn’t tough enough during their thumping 78-point loss to Geelong and simply couldn’t handle the Cats’ pressure.

The Dockers were blown away in the first half and trailed by 60 points before Murphy Reid’s four goals in the third quarter inspired a comeback that left them only 21 points down.

But then they couldn’t handle Geelong’s 10-goal onslaught in the last quarter as the Cats won the centre clearances 8-2 to produce a 23.9 (147) to 10.9 (69) victory.

Longmuir said his team received a brutal lesson.

“There’s a fair bit to get my head around. I thought after the first five minutes we weren’t tough enough,” Longmuir said.

“Their hunt and their pressure was at a level we couldn’t handle and we couldn’t apply the same pressure to them. It was really disappointing.

“We’ll have to do a deep dive of it. I feel like their pressure was at a level where we weren’t used to and weren’t up to. We spoke about it yesterday and pre-game - round one goes up a level. We weren’t ready for that. We were on the back foot all day because of it. We’ve got some work to do.”

The Dockers were missing Shai Bolton, Hayden Young, Nat Fyfe, Michael Walters and Sean Darcy, and fielded the most inexperienced team of the round. They then lost forward Sam Switkowski to a groin injury during the third quarter.

But Longmuir was alarmed by the lack of fight.

“It’s not the brand of footy we want to be playing,” he said.

“We’re not going to come out and win every quarter but we’ve got to be able to compete in every quarter. We’ve got to be able to defend like our life depends on it in every quarter.

“It doesn’t mean the scoreboard is going to go your way but some of the stuff was clearly unacceptable. We’ll have a look at it, review our week and we will definitely get better than that.”

Fremantle could be strengthened by the return of Bolton and Walters for next week’s game against Sydney. But the team’s depth is now in question after they also suffered four losses in a row last year when key players were injured.

Longmuir said he and the players now had to thoroughly review their performances.

“We had enough experience out there. We had enough players out there,” he said.

“I want a bit more than one round this year to make my mind up on that. It’s not where my mind is at the moment. The team we put out today is capable of much better than that.

“I’ll put my hand up. I clearly didn’t prepare them the right way. We’ll review all aspects of our week. I’ll review my performance and we will put out a better showing next week. I think the team we put out can produce a much better performance than that.”