And so with important names on the bench they sit 6-6 and are in a massive fight to push back in to the top eight, let alone contend for another grand final appearance.

Coach Don Pyke is keeping faith though and says that if they can settle their side down they can again push the top sides in the competition.

“We are better and more capable than we are showing at the moment, but we have to get the belief back,” he said.

“We're lacking a little bit of connection - a bit of synergy, which historically has been there. There is some new personnel and guys returning so that synergy, building that, is important.

“We're not flowing the ball like we have in the past. We need to keep looking at ways to build that into our game.”

Pyke said that they were confident of going into Sunday’s game against Fremantle, believing they had a side that was capable of winning.

They had a total of 988 games more experience on the ground than the Dockers; with 10 players who had played at least 100 games, compared to Fremantle’s five.

Fremantle won by three points.

As a result, Adelaide now have to beat Hawthorn at the MCG on Friday night if they want to keep their chances of playing finals alive.

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But they are likely to make more changes this week, with Rory Laird and Tom Lynch set to come back in.

And Pyke said there are more changes to come after the bye.

“We'd be hopeful both (Laird and Lynch) would be right next week - we'll have to see how they have gone over the weekend,” he said.

“Rory (Sloane) is probably likely after the bye at this stage, the way he is tracking.

“(Mitch) McGovern is still a way off; (Brodie) Smith not until later in the year.

“We had enough players out there to get a result. It's a matter of now building, hopefully building enough continuity into those guys to get them to play together regularly and back to playing a style we're capable of playing.

“We're just not in synergy at the moment; not in synch.”