After failing to challenge Geelong on Thursday night in what was a crucial game in the context of Fremantle’s year, Caleb Serong said the players are determined to bounce back and not give up on their 2021 season.

Speaking on the Final Siren podcast, Serong said the Geelong clash was just the first of a series of six challenging games ahead, and the playing group would look to dust themselves off for the next test against the sixth-placed Sydney – the only top eight team Freo has defeated this season.

“We need to chuck our arms around each other, it's a tough game, there’s a lot sore boys after tonight, and the last thing we want to do is go into ourselves and chuck up the white flag and surrender our season,” Serong said.

“We still have got five really important games to come up, we still have a chance to play finals. We have a long break, so for the next couple of days we’ll really prioritise recovery and get our bodies in elite nick for the next game.

“(Sydney) are playing some really good footy at the moment so we're going to be prepared for that.”

The Cats named a team that was on average 55 games more experienced (146.1 vs 95.1) and 2.5 years older (27.9 vs 25.4) than Freo and Serong said the only way to take a positive from the night was to try and use the loss as motivation to get better from the experience.

“We spoke (post-game) of using this game as a learning. They are a top four team and have been for a decade and more. They have been an outstanding club and team for a long time now,” Serong said.

“We want to use it as a learning curve to take us into the last five games of the season. Our sights are firmly set on still playing finals footy this year, no doubt about that.

“It's a tough loss but we're not going to go into our shell. We're going to keep playing our brand and keep playing our footy.

“We are going to keep trying to improve - whether that results in finals or not - if we play our way for long enough, we are going to be in a lot of games.

“I have belief in our group, that we’ll will win more games than we will lose if we play our way for long periods of time.”

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