FREMANTLE coach Trent Cooper believes his side can turn around its 49-point defeat at the hands of Brisbane when the Dockers return home to host Geelong. The Cats head to Fremantle Oval coming off a spirited hard slog against Richmond at GMHBA, while the Dockers were comprehensively beaten by the Lions up at The Gabba.

Despite the big loss, Cooper said there were a number of factors that contributed to the result, including an interrupted preseason and early injuries to defenders Janelle Cuthbertson and Jess Low.

“We’ve had a bit of an interrupted pre-season with a few different things,” Cooper said post-match. “But to come up here and play the best, I think Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide everyone identifies those as the top three sides.

“We want to challenge them and we will learn a lot from today, that the run away from stoppage, the power running that they do to outnumber at the next contest, that’s something that we’re capable of and we’ve got the fitness and the running power to do that but it was that reaction time that Brisbane did today to make it look like it was so easy, because they always have extra players at the contest.

“Our backline ended up being very disorganised today but that’s no surprise when we had the two injuries and also Laura Pugh out (suspension) who is also one of our prime backline organisers. “She will be back next week as well. “It’s great to play this game Round 1 and say there’s a lot to learn out of that and we think we can learn pretty quickly.”

Low was ruled out with concussion and will miss the Round 2 clash with Geelong as part of the 12-day concussion protocols, while Cuthbertson suffered a broken nose in the Round 1 collision, and will be right to play against the Cats. Fremantle was well beaten in terms of sheer numbers against the Lions, but Cooper is confident those areas can be fixed on Saturday.

“We’ve got the fitness base and all our data says that we can do it but today we were just a little bit off,” Cooper said. “We haven’t had the ideal preparation with our two games we’ve had leading into it. “I watched Brisbane and St Kilda last week and I thought that the quality of that practice game was a lot better than the quality of the games we played in. “Today is that sharp reminder of what’s needed.

“Also Hayley Miller and Kiara Bowers hadn’t played a game at all, had limited pre seasons, so for them today they both played ok and played out the game alright. “They’ll be a lot better for it and we expect a lot of our other players to step up as well.”

The key for the Dockers is to win the midfield battle against a strong Geelong on-ball group, with Cooper believing that if the forwards can get enough opportunities, they can put on a big score.

“I thought we looked dangerous at times too with the ones that didn’t even work out. Because we are quite quick down there even without our talls,” Cooper said. Roxy Roux, Amy Franklin and Aine Tighe, even though they are tall they’ve also got good leg speed and Hayley (Miller) was down there with a few others. So we think if we can generate enough inside 50s that we can definitely kick enough goals.”