NORTH Melbourne's third consecutive loss was compounded on Saturday night by a knee injury to Hamish McIntosh which could leave the ruckman sidelined for the rest of the home and away season.

McIntosh left Subiaco Oval early in the second quarter with a posterior cruciate ligament injury, which could see him miss up to 10 matches.

Speaking after the shock 53-point thumping by Fremantle, midfielder Daniel Wells said losing McIntosh was a huge blow for the club.

“He was going alright in the first quarter and he’s really important to us because he can play in the ruck or then go down forward and be so dangerous,” Wells said.

“But we didn’t speak about it as a team during the game because it was just one of those games when you just try to get on with it. If nothing else, it probably gives one of our young kids the opportunity to play and give them a taste of the big league.

“So next week is a whole new week and we play a new opposition in Hawthorn.

“They’re flying at the moment but we take some confidence from the fact we’ve had some good battles against them in the past and we really took it up to them when we met earlier this season.

“I think we can pull together as a playing group pretty quickly after this loss and we’ll certainly be going into that game to win it.”

Wells says the club’s senior players have to accept their share of the blame for the heavy defeat.

Coach Dean Laidley had pointed the finger at his younger players, suggesting they rested on their laurels after a good performance against Geelong just eight days prior.

But Wells says part of the club’s challenge to bounce back against Hawthorn this week will be for all of the side to accept responsibility for the Fremantle loss.

“It was very disappointing to come over here and play the way we did and we’re pretty upset about it,” Wells said.

“Maybe some of the younger players might have made some decisions and done some things we normally would not have expected them to do. But it was not just the younger players, it was the older players as well.

“When you lose by that much it’s pretty hard to say you played well. In fact not many of us played well, perhaps our skipper (Adam Simpson) and maybe Brent Harvey.

“It was a tough game out there, all credit to Fremantle, they played some pretty hard footy and they ran hard and worked for each other.”