Fremantle caretaker coach Mark Harvey has admitted the Dockers have difficulty playing at Telstra Dome but is confident they can rectify their poor record at the ground against St Kilda on Saturday.
The Dockers have won only seven of 22 games at the Dome since the stadium first held games in 2000 and more recently they have won just once in their past five appearances at Docklands.
Harvey said the surroundings, most notably the closed roof, were vastly different to those the players regularly experienced on the wide open Subiaco Oval.
"I think the sides that don't play on this particular surface a lot, and we're one of those sides, just at times have problems with the stadium particularly when it's closed roof and all that sort of business," Harvey said before putting his players through a light training run at the Junction Oval in Melbourne on Friday morning.
"It's a bit difficult at times so sometimes as you're getting used to it the opposition can get ahead of you."
"Our record on the road is something that we've got to address and we did that a couple of weeks ago against Adelaide which is a good sign so hopefully we can put together another one."
With strong wins over Adelaide, West Coast and Essendon during the past month, the Dockers now sit only half a game outside the top eight and Harvey admits their finals destiny is in their own hands.
"We've had a good month, now we've got to have another good three weeks so if we finish up getting there we'll have earned it," Harvey said on Friday.
"We've still got a couple of tough games coming up, St Kilda's one of them tomorrow so all we've done is just given ourselves a glimmer of hope and we've got to make the most of that."
The club was boosted earlier in the week by the re-signing of club captain Matthew Pavlich for a further three years and Harvey said the decision had galvanised the team.
"When you have your marquee player sign for three years that just shows enormous sense of direction and where he and the club think they are going to go," he said.
"It's just a great sign of where the club is, it stabilises a lot of things and it's a great part of Matthew's repertoire to show the loyalty that he has and we expect that from other players too."
Matthew Carr will return to the team for the Saints clash while emergency Troy Cook has also made the trip to Melbourne.
Harvey said the Dockers were confident they had enough firepower at both ends of the ground to give themselves a strong chance of victory.
"They've got some tall forwards (but) we've got some pretty good ones ourselves so there's going to be some mind games and different structures up forward," he said.
"But ultimately it will come down to the midfield and the direction of what they are doing there."