A disappointed Luke Beveridge says his side is still a work-in-progress in 2017 but he remains confident that the best is yet to come, he told reporters on Friday night.
The Bulldogs went down to Geelong by 23 points under lights at Simonds Stadium and find themselves in a delicate position in eighth position on the ladder with a win-loss record of 5-4 after nine rounds.
A pop-culture buff, Beveridge compared his side's 'mystery' form fluctuations to 1990s American science fiction TV show The X Files.
"It was sort of a mystery show where you're looking for aliens and you're looking for things that are a bit obscure," he said.
"It's a bit of an 'X-file' at the moment so we'll continue to explore what we need."
Beveridge may be a little puzzled with his side's predicament, but he's not giving up the faith.
WATCH: Luke Beveridge's full media conference
"We're still trying to work ourselves out. Finding the spirit and the endeavour we've had for a while, we just haven't had enough to take us from where we've been," he said.
"But I believe we'll find it."
Despite playing good football in patches this season, Beveridge said his team was not yet in a position to launch their finals assault as they search for the right chemistry.
That forwards Travis Cloke, Jack Redpath, Tory Dickson and Clay Smith had never played together before Friday night's game against Geelong underlined the Bulldogs' lack of cohesion.
"Our players, individually, aren't playing well enough, consistently enough to bed that down and to say we're at that point yet," Beveridge said.
"We'll still evolve and we still need to work out what the best 22 is week to week and as the year goes on that'll continue to change, I imagine."
After surrendering a 26-point half-time lead, the Bulldogs worked their way back into the contest by booting six goals to one in the third term as they took a nine-point buffer into the final change.
However, a 50m penalty paid against Dogs forward Travis Cloke for dissent at the start of the fourth quarter allowed Geelong skipper Joel Selwood to trim the margin to just three points when he capitalised on his chance to spark the Cats' revival.
Beveridge said he was disappointed with his team's ill-discipline and numerous ball-handling mistakes.
"I'm not going to hang any of our players out to dry, I'll never do that.
"But the vast majority of our group were doing everything they could to win the game and unfortunately we need our 22 week to week to make a really consistent and even contribution.
"We were almost there. When we had the upper hand and the arm-wrestle was in our favour we should have gone on with it."
Beveridge has backed Tom Liberatore to win his place back in the side after he was dropped for the game against Geelong.
"His contributions haven't been where they need to be for quite a while," Beveridge said.
"He'll come back into the side, I'd imagine, over the next few weeks but he just hasn't been at his best."
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