Tom Hawkins confessed the Cats were miles away from their best footy on Saturday night against last year’s Grand Finalists.

Despite Hawkins’ three goals and six marks, the Dockers were able to keep the lead from the very first bounce to the last with a grueling performance.   

“We didn’t play anywhere near our best brand of footy but Fremantle were great tonight, it was a big occasion for them and they started well and they stayed on top of us for the day,” Hawkins told Cats TV minutes after the game.

“It was frustrating out there but we’ll move forward and review what we did poorly and what we did ok and try and improve on that.”

Hawkins felt the Cats 32-point loss was due to a number of insufficiencies in their game. He acknowledges that the main issue was their inability to win the contested ball, which left them with a low result of 119 to 161 contested possessions.

“We just looked really off and our skill execution was really poor right across the ground and you can’t afford to do that against anyone in modern day footy,” Hawkins explained.

“I think our contested ball stats were down as well that’s probably an area that hurt us a bit as well.”

However, young Cat Jed Bews lifted the mood with his gallant debut of 15 touches, eight marks and five tackles. Cats TV joined Bews in the rooms after making his debut against the Dockers, click here to view. 

“We’ve been really impressed with the way Bewsy has gone about his footy over the past 12 months, he has really come on and matured as a player,” Hawkins said.

Hear more from Tom Hawkins after Saturday night’s game on Cats TV.