Fremantle defender Garrick Ibbotson said Saturday’s loss to the Eagles came down to more than just losing Aaron Sandilands during the second quarter.

Ibbotson said that while adjusting to the loss of a quality player like Sandilands can be difficult, it wasn’t the deciding factor in the game.

“I don’t think he was the difference in the game,” Ibbotson said.

“It’s always hard when you lose a player that won’t play again for the rest of the game, because you have to shuffle around a bit.”

The shuffle saw some players in an unfamiliar ruck role, but Ibbotson said what hurt Freo the most were simple mistakes, not positional adjustments.

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“The ball use is a bit of an issue,” he said.

“I don’t think we used the ball very well today, and we still need to work on some basic kicking and handball skills.”

Ibbotson lamented the ball skills, and the fact that the mistakes often occurred coming out of defence.

“If you miss a kick in the back half you can get scored against quite heavily,” he said.

“If we use the ball a bit better it makes it a lot easier for us to defend.”

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Despite his obvious disappointment in the result, Ibbotson said there were definite positives to take out of the game.

“We can take some positives out of it,” he said.

“I don’t think they outworked us or anything.

“Our effort was there, and to get within five points during the last quarter, we gave it a really good shot.”