FREMANTLE veteran Michael Johnson says the Dockers are hurting deeply after five consecutive losses but they must pick themselves up quickly and continue to work hard to improve.
Coach Ross Lyon said the Dockers played some horrible football in the shock four-point loss to Carlton on Sunday.
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Johnson said the players were hurting but they needed to stick at it.
"It's hard to swallow," Johnson told AFL.com.au.
"It hurts really deeply and just looking around and watching the players walk off it's a hard pill to swallow.
"Everyone knows that we're trying to find a different style of game and work the ball in certain spots and going quick. I think the boys are going a little bit too quick when it comes to game time and costly turnovers are hurting us.
"We don't want to go away from it. We want to keep going the way that we've been training over the last six months because we know it will work. The way we train has got to be the way we play and it's just not gelling for us at the moment."
The task doesn't get any easier for the Dockers. They may lose star midfielder Nat Fyfe after he suffered a leg injury in the loss to the Blues. The injury was to the same leg that he broke last year.
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Hayden Ballantyne also copped a heavy cork while a number of players including Johnson suffered injury issues in the loss.
Johnson twisted his knee in the last quarter. He said he had not had it formally checked after the match but he did go back into the ground after an initial assessment on the bench.
The Dockers face Adelaide at Adelaide Oval next week before matches against Greater Western Sydney at Domain Stadium and Hawthorn in Tasmania.
Johnson said the Dockers would compete hard no matter what personnel are available in the next three weeks.
"It's going to be a challenge against Adelaide," Johnson said.
"They had a really good match against Hawthorn on Friday night.
"We may lose a couple of players, who knows. We know that in the past players come in and perform for us and it comes back to effort and who goes out there the way we've been training. We'll be confident with what team we take out next week but there are things we've got to improve on and get better at."
