A philosophical Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse says Saturday's 65-point drubbing by Hawthorn at the MCG has given him and his players plenty to think about over the next couple of weeks.
Malthouse acknowledged at his post-match media conference that his team had come up short in almost every department against a Hawks line-up that's developing into something very special, but he was far from downcast about his team's longer-tern prospects.
"If you get beaten like that and you've got nothing to say then you've got nowhere to go," Malthouse said.
"We got smashed in the centre … our backs, on the day just weren't up to scratch and at the forward end, our work ethic was quite substandard."
"If you get beaten like that we've got to acknowledge, one, the opponent … but two, it gives us something to work on."
"I would hate to come away from a game like that and think, 'where do we start' or 'we've got nothing to work on' - we've got plenty to work on."
"We would be kidding ourselves if we didn't acknowledge the fact that we've got some weaknesses across the board and that is the challenge now."
"I'm not despondent over this game because there's so many things we can look at and know we can get better."
Malthouse wasn't backward in naming names and singling out players he believed had let the team down or who were struggling for form.
Starting with the backline, Malthouse said Shane Wakelin 'made fundamental errors', Nathan Brown 'lowered his colours' while Tyson Goldsack and Harry O'Brien were 'off their game', 'quite poor' and 'haven't been in good form this year'.
Travis Cloke 'didn't get near the football' and none of his midfielders 'had an impact where it really mattered most', while Brown needed to 'take his medicine' after conceding six second-half goals to Lance Franklin.
Malthouse excused skipper Scott Burns, who was returning after three weeks out with an ankle sprain and who finished the match hobbling along the sidelines, from a bake, and stressed Brown would need to learn from the experience because he's destined to come up against Franklin many times over his career as Collingwood's 'dominant backline player'.
"One thing is for certain, we're not in a position where we will ever contemplate giving up, so we will go for it and experiment and keep working at it," Malthouse said.