“What’s happened to this Fremantle footy club?”

That’s the question Fox Footy experts are asking after the Dockers fell to their third loss in four games – with their only victory coming against an injury ravaged West Coast last weekend.

Semi-finalists in 2022, the Dockers were expected to improve again this season – but so far they’ve been dubbed “slow-mo Freo” and “Freeze-mantle” in worrying assessments of their ball movement.

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“I think if we were assessing the biggest flop through the first four weeks, it feels to me like it’s Freo,” Gerard Whateley said on AFL 360.

“A team that won a final, went to a semi, their natural curve has them on the up. They haven’t fired a shot.

“It was interesting to hear Justin Longmuir during our coverage at half time (against Adelaide) and he didn’t really have any answers. They clearly weren’t playing the way he wanted to.

“It begs the question while you’re watching it unfold, how are they supposed to be playing?

“Because they don’t look anywhere near it.”

Co-host Jason Dunstall was equally critically on where the Dockers are sitting at 1-3 – from playing four teams that didn’t make finals last year.

“Right now 2022 looks like a fluke,” he lamented.

“There’s a complete lack of dare. Their ball movement is so stagnant and so unimaginative.

“Their forward 50 is a mess.

“I just don’t know where they go. There’s no confidence.”

But statistics show the Dockers are actually ranking well with ball movement this season, sitting second for handballs, third for metres gained by handball and fourth for inside 50s.

It’s what happens from that there has the Dockers ranked dead last for scores per inside 50.

“I think there’s a real focus on their back half ball use and I think that’s a little bit overplayed,” Nathan Buckley said On the Couch.

“The back two thirds of what they are doing is actually quite effective.

“Looking at faster football … they stack up. They are just getting nothing from the front.”

Michael Walters, who missed Round 1 through injury and only played from late in the third quarter in Round 2 as the sub, is the Dockers’ equal leading goal kicker with 6 for the season.

He’s joined by fellow small Lachie Schulz on six while Michael Frederick and Sam Switkowski both have four.

Big men Luke Jackson and Matt Taberner have just three goals for the entire season from four games.

Buckley said there was “plenty that’s not working” for coach Justin Longmuir in worrying signs for a Fremantle side that has one of the toughest runs home of any team this season.

“General intensity around the ball, maybe they are a victim of their own expectations internally and potentially wanting to do better in the first and second games and dealing with that in some sense,” he said.

Dunstall warned any hopes of a Nat Fyfe miracle return from injury would change the team’s fortunes was oversold.

“Nat Fyfe is a really interesting one … it’s almost a case of well why do we keep talking about him when he hasn’t had an impact for so long? Do we expect him to come back and have a big impact? I think we get to the point now where we have to say that’s not going to happen,” he warned.

“Let’s park him for a moment and say ‘forget about Nat Fyfe’. This is bigger than that.

“Why haven’t you been able to develop other methods for moving the ball forward and actually scoring when they showed us they were capable of doing it last year?”

Despite the 39-point loss to Adelaide, the Dockers have stayed on in South Australia ahead of Gather Round this weekend, where they will face a similarly under-fire Gold Coast in the twilight Friday contest.