FREMANTLE coach Ross Lyon says he was "flabbergasted" by his side's one-goal first half in its 48-point loss to Collingwood.
The Dockers put in their worst half of the season (1.4) and finished with their lowest-scoring game of 2016 (5.7.37) in the defeat to the Pies at the MCG on Friday night.
They were completely outplayed by the Magpies to half-time and trailed by 40 points at the main break, closing to within 22 points early in the last term before the Pies again took control of the contest.
Five talking points: Collingwood v Fremantle
Lyon said after three straight victories the Dockers had let themselves down against the Magpies.
"It's obviously a step back. We're really disappointed. It's a Friday night [game at] the MCG and we'd spoken about that," Lyon said.
"We've got plenty of members and fans and you're on the national stage. We'd like our young players and our leaders to really stand up, but that didn't occur.
"[I'm] flabbergasted in some respects [about] what we dished up in the first half.
"I never separate myself and clearly there's somewhere in our preparation that allowed that to happen that I'm responsible for and my coaching team, but like last week we don't take all the credit and this week we don't take all the blame."
Lyon said "everything went wrong" in the first half, but he didn't feel he needed to fire up his team at either of the quarter breaks.
He said the Magpies appeared determined to stick together after the controversy that engulfed the club this week involving president Eddie McGuire and his comments on Triple M a week earlier.
"They were a club under siege obviously with Eddie being put through the wringer, and they seemed to be galvanised and responded in a manner we would have liked to see ourselves respond in," he said.
WATCH Ross lyon's full media conference here
Lyon pointed to his midfield being "obliterated" by the Pies' on-ball brigade, which started in the ruck where the absence of Aaron Sandilands and Jon Griffin was evident.
He added that the Dockers' desire to move the ball across the ground was off, causing overuse in slippery conditions.
"They were the two most obvious [issues], but we looked at the guys at half-time and they looked pristine. It wasn't animated at quarter-time or half-time, but we said 'We've got a bit of a hole we need to work our way through'," Lyon said.
"At half-time we just set it up to compete and were accountable all over the ground."
Fremantle was down to just 28 players to pick from this week as it lurches through an injury crisis, but Lyon refused to use the lack of selection options as a reason behind the poor result.
He said Griffin will return to the team after its bye for the clash with Melbourne in round 16, with youngster Ethan Hughes also likely to return through the WAFL after injury.
The loss was the second-lowest score in Lyon's four-and-a-half season reign at the club, only just surpassing the 5.6 (36) effort against West Coast in 2012, his first year at the club.
"It was disappointing. We came here with higher expectations than what we delivered on," Lyon said.
Michael Walters shows some of the effort that was missing on Friday. Picture: AFL Media
