Fremantle have taken full ownership of their round-one flop, with coach Justin Longmuir declaring he retains full faith in his players and the game plan ahead of Sunday's crunch clash with Sydney at Optus Stadium.
The Dockers' season of hope started off in disastrous fashion when a poor first half and a diabolical final quarter resulted in a 78-point loss to Geelong at the Cattery.
Longmuir has been happy with the response from his players this week is confident they'll put in a much better display against the Swans.
"We were all disappointed with the showing we put in," Longmuir told reporters on Thursday.
"But we need to own it, accept it, and learn from it so it doesn't happen again.
"We've been on the front foot with that. It's been a total club effort and we've all taken ownership.
"The team we put out on the weekend will perform a lot better."
Longmuir will resist making mass changes to the group, but he's hopeful of being able to select star recruit Shai Bolton.
Bolton, who missed the loss to Geelong due to a stress response in his leg, needs to train strongly on Thursday and pull up well to be named in the final team.
"It would be nice to get his (Dockers) career under way," Longmuir said.
"We'll probably have to manipulate his role a little bit to what we were doing in pre-season and what we had planned.
"But we think he'd be right for four quarters."
Longmuir said it wasn't the right time to make major changes to either the group or the game plan.
"There'll be some changes, but largely (I) trust the group," Longmuir said.
"We pick the team based on form and the body of work they've done over pre-season.
"We just spoke about you don't throw the game plan or the pre-season out the window, and players' form out the window after one game.
"We're not over-reacting."
Fremantle veteran Nat Fyfe, who endured an injury-interrupted pre-season, will feature in a WAFL practice match for a second straight week.
"We feel Fyfe needs another game," Longmuir said.
"We want to make sure we build his resilience up and his body and ... he gets his game time up."
Sam Switkowski will miss two to three weeks with a groin injury, while Michael Walters (knee, 2-4 weeks), Sean Darcy (knee/ankle, 2-3 weeks) and Hayden Young (hamstring, 2 weeks) are other key players sidelined.
Sydney, who started their season with fighting losses to Hawthorn and Brisbane, were dealt a further blow this week when Lewis Melican (adductor) was ruled out for the next two to three weeks.
Melican joins Taylor Adams (hamstring), Errol Gulden (ankle), Callum Mills (foot), Harry Cunningham (foot), Robbie Fox (calf) and Logan McDonald (ankle) on Sydney's lengthy injury list.
