Geelong captain Joel Selwood says the Cats’ upset AFL qualifying final loss to Fremantle is a reminder that a patchy effort won’t win games in September.

Selwood said it stung that Saturday’s defeat was the Cats’ second straight finals loss to the Dockers, who ousted them last year in an elimination final.

He said the main lesson to take into Friday night’s sudden-death MCG semi-final against Port Adelaide was straightforward.

“You’ve got to be harder for longer,” he said.

“I think we already knew that but it just reinforced it.

“We obviously played poorly at stages throughout the weekend, we just can’t do that this week.

“We were poor for a long part of the game.

“It’s something that we did do a little bit throughout the year but we’ll make sure we get it right now.”

The Cats were thrashed in the hit-outs, leading to the Dockers winning two-thirds of the clearances.

Selwood said it was hard to criticise inexperienced Geelong ruckmen Nathan Vardy and Mark Blicavs, given both are considerably shorter than Fremantle’s 211cm ruckman Aaron Sandilands.

“We’ll be better around there this weekend,” he said.

“Obviously we don’t have a monster that we’re rucking against.

“(Port ruckman Matthew) Lobbe’s been extremely impressive in the past month especially.

“But we really back in our young guys to do the job and we’ve got to make sure we work harder underneath them.”

Selwood was unsure if Tom Hawkins, who has been struggling with a back injury throughout the season, would return, after the Cats’ attack struggled in his absence.

While Saturday’s game was just the third Hawkins has missed this season, he has lacked mobility and flexibility in recent games he has played.

But Selwood said if Hawkins took his place against the Power, the Cats would have confidence in him.

“We know what’s bugging him at the moment,” he said.

“When he goes out there we expect him to do a job and he’s been doing that for us.

“During the week last week he just wasn’t right and put his hand up and said that he couldn’t do it.”

Selwood was unwilling to divulge the nature of what appeared to be a heated exchange between himself and teammate Steve Johnson and Dockers tagger Ryan Crowley at the end of Saturday’s match.

“We play a game, we’re all competitive and that’s all it was,” he said.

“They got the win at the end of the day and that’s where we left it.”