Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick's amid the club has "reverted back to the middling side", stating the club's aim is now firmly on the Wildcard Round.
Leading into the new season, the Suns were tipped to go beyond their semi-final finish last year, welcoming a host of star draftees as well as Christian Petracca and Jamarra Ugle-Hagan.
However, the Queensland club has struggled to reach the heights of last year, losing the past five matches to bundle out of the top 10, putting their season in jeopardy.
“It's an eight-week season for us,” Hardwick said.
“At the end of the day, we win more games than we don't, we probably scrape into the top 10. That's got to be the aim of us at the moment.
“You do look at our side from last year to this year, from this time we played them here, 10 changes. So, it's significant, we know that, we understand that.
“What we've got to do, or what I've got to do, is get our boys playing a better, more consistent brand of footy.
“This side (Fremantle) is very well driven in three phases of the game and we looked anything but that tonight.
“Last week (against Hawthorn) was a good game of footy for us. Tonight, we just reverted back to the middling side that we probably sit at the moment, so I've got some works to do.”
The ongoing trade speculation regarding Ben King, Bailey Humphrey and Jed Walter has caught headlines more often than not, causing ongoing distraction at Carrara.
One of the leading scorers last year, Gold Coast have struggled to shoot a shot, and on Sunday against the ladder-leading Dockers, their battles were evident.
"I thought our boys inside 50 today were really, really poor. I thought we had momentum where we should have scored and got goals, and we just didn't," Hardwick said.
"We fluffed it, (and) they're the frustrating ones, especially when you're away. You need to capitalise on those opportunities, especially in the first and second quarter.
"We had opportunities where we could have passed off to a teammate to get a better shot on goal, and I spoke about this last week and we didn't do it. So we've got to get it done."
An intriguing clash against Collingwood at People First Stadium could turn the club's fortunes around, and break a poor streak of losses since their trip to Darwin.
