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Sam Mitchell and his Hawthorn coaching staff were caught off-guard by smart Fremantle tactics in Saturday's 69-point AFL thumping.
The Perth flogging was the rebuilding Hawks' fifth-straight loss and was a noticeable setback after three tighter games.
While Mitchell often knows what is coming from the opposition, this time he admitted the Dockers surprised Hawthorn at Perth's Optus Stadium.
"Freo coached really well. They scouted us well. They did things that we weren't as prepared for in the coaches' box," he said.
"We didn't have the tools in the kit bag to be able to adapt during the game."
Mitchell said parts of their game worked early, but they could not capitalise and then Fremantle took total control.
"(We) started the game well, but we were losing the scoreboard and we shouldn't be able to lose that amount of territory," Mitchell said.
"Once they got their game going, we didn't have enough tools in the kit bag to get momentum back at any stage.
"To their credit, they really did force us to play in a manner that we didn't really want to."
But Mitchell can still see the light at the end of the tunnel for the last-placed Hawks.
They will regain Changkuoth Jiath and Luke Breust for Saturday's match against Melbourne at the MCG.
"As a team right now we're still forging our own identity. We're not going to try to change too much according to opposition," he said.
"The best teams in the competition, for the most part, you know exactly how they're going to play, and that's what we want to be."
And Mitchell says there is no shortage of talent to achieve that.
"Despite us not being very successful in winning the four points very often, we have got selection pressure on every position on the ground," he said.
"We are able to make changes and there are players that are playing really good football for Box Hill so that's putting the pressure on."
"No one's getting a game for free."
