FREMANTLE coach Mark Harvey says the criticism levelled after his side’s opening loss to Collingwood is unwarranted, and is hoping to quiet that with a good performance against the team he sees as premiership favourites this Saturday night.

Fremantle takes on Hawthorn at Subiaco Oval after losing to Collingwood by 26 points at the MCG last Saturday, and being lambasted for it afterwards.

Harvey is not going to judge his team on one loss, though.

"I can't understand why there's such a fuss being made about round one," Harvey said.

“The media should not keep putting the pressure on and unloading on the team every time they lose a game.

"Only one team won on the road and that was the premiers. We travelled as far as anyone, along with Brisbane, so take that into consideration before you make judgement on age performance.

"There seems to be an enormous amount of negativity about one game, but not from my point of view. We just played a top-four team from last season and everyone wants to jump on us, but again we play a top side, so will find out more."

Much of the criticism has been aimed at experienced players such as Matthew Carr, Shaun McManus and Chris Tarrant, who only managed six possessions against his former side. Harvey doesn’t believe it is justified.

"Absolutely I have been disappointed. At 28 years of age, I think most players peak, so you need to look a bit deeper into the game as to why we lost," he said.

"It's premature to go after Chris for his performance last week. There were many players in round one that had ordinary games and Chris will rebound from it. He's one of our important players in the forward structure and he understands that. Hopefully he rises to the challenges, but he will not be going back to the WAFL."

Freo’s midfield was beaten by Collingwood's, but Harvey was happy with the game of ruckman Aaron Sandilands. He just wants his midfielders to work better with Sandilands, and said captain Matthew Pavlich could see himself there for longer periods.

"We're playing more players through the midfield – even Pavlich spent nearly a quarter and a half in there. We just have to capitalise on Aaron's hit-outs. The opposition put a lot of strategy into Aaron because of the dominance he has, so we just have to use more variation with what we do.

"Matthew may spend more time regularly in the midfield. We still need to kick a winning score and he has been our major goalkicker, so we have to take into consideration where the game is at."

Harvey will have two forced changes, with Dean Solomon suspended and Heath Black suffering concussion. Chris Mayne was outstanding in the WAFL for Perth, but is unlikely to play, while Rhys PalFremantle's Mark Johnson scuffles with Collingwood players in round onemer is a chance after a solid game for East Fremantle. Garrick Ibbotson travelled with the Dockers and is a possibility, as is Paul Duffield.

Where Freo desperately needs someone to stand up is as a third forward option, but Ryan Murphy, Adam Campbell and Kepler Bradley all had limited impact in the WAFL.

Harvey and his coaching staff stayed in Melbourne to watch the Hawks demolish Melbourne on Sunday, but is confident of cutting down their running game.

"I went to the game and it was interesting, but I certainly didn’t see any weaknesses. They were fantastic, have taken off from what they did last year and would be pronounced premiership favourites on the back of round one," he said.

"It will be a scrapping game. They are coming off nearly a five-day break and how they recover from that will be an issue for them, but it's all about what we want to do and how we can expose Hawthorn."