An ankle injury has sidelined exciting small forward Michael Walters, who may still require surgery, while Garrick Ibbotson could also be out for up to a month.

"At this stage the medical advice is that we should wait a week to 10 days to allow the swelling in Michael’s ankle to subside before having further scans," said general manager of football operations Chris Bond.

“After the surgeon has reviewed and reported on those scans next week, our medical team will be best placed to make a decision on whether or not surgery is required.”

Ibbotson, who managed just 13 games in 2013 and also missed the grand final loss to the Hawks, dislocated his shoulder in the rematch on the weekend and will miss at least two games, probably four.

And forward Chris Mayne will need to pass a fitness test on an ankle that he injured in the embarrassing loss on Friday night and could also miss Sunday's clash against Essendon at Patersons Stadium.

These injuries are on top of the losses of Michael Barlow (also to injury) and Nat Fyfe, who has one more week to serve of his controversial suspension.

Yet the line from the Dockers remains consistent: "We don't think we're about any one player or any couple of players," says defender Lee Spurr.

"We're an effort-based side and that's what we look to do. We'd love to have them out there. They're both (Fyfe abd Barlow) great players and they would help us, but in saying that we put 22 players out there that we know and expect to get the job done every week."

These injuries could not have come at a worse time (if there is a good time for injuries to come) and the Dockers mantra has never needed to be truer.

Before the bye in round 10, Fremantle faces Essendon, Sydney, North Melbourne, West Coast, Port Adelaide and Geelong - which is an extremely tough run considering they also played the reigning premier last weekend.

If the Dockers are unable to bounce back quickly and cover their fallen men, they face the risk of falling behind the pace-makers early in the season.

They also face West Coast, Geelong, Hawthorn and Port Adelaide again towards the end of the qualifying rounds.

So the ability to rebound quickly and strongly could be crucial to the Dockers' chances of returning to the grand final arena.

"We're going to review it (the game against Hawthorn) and go through it and learn from it and grow and move forward," said Spurr.

"You can't just sweep it under the carpet. We need to have a hard look at why that happened and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"Our effort wasn't good enough and we need to give better effort. It wasn't up to standard and it shows that if you're a little bit off in this competition you get beaten pretty badly."

Zac Dawson returns to the side after missing Friday's clash due to suspension, while several players were in good form last weekend in the WAFL - including Clancee Pearce, Zac Clarke and former Melbourne midfielder Colin Sylvia, who is yet to debut for Fremantle.