Luke Beveridge conceded that not enough senior players impacted the game on Thursday night, as his Western Bulldogs were subject to more injury pain in the form of Aaron Naughton’s sickening fall.

The Dogs went down to Sydney by 66 points at Marvel Stadium after fading badly, coughing up 11 second-half goals as waning skill level and composure cost the home side.

Watch every match of every round of the AFL Premiership Season LIVE and ad-break free during play on FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.

But the tone of the second half was set when spearhead forward Aaron Naughton suffered a neck injury in a scary-looking marking contest in the third quarter.

The key forward’s body was incidentally upended mid-air as he attempted to mark, and he was awkwardly twisted upon landing after coming down head-first.

Promisingly, though, the high-marking left-footer has seemingly avoided serious injury and even concussion, but he’s likely set for some time on the sidelines, one week after his forward-line running mate Sam Darcy ruptured his ACL.

“He’s going to go home now, and he’ll have his neck looked at tomorrow. We’ll get back to you on that,” Beveridge told reporters post-match of Naughton’s condition.

“He appears to have strained down that side of his neck from the incident or occurrence.

“The bright side is there’s no sign of concussion, but we’ll have to report in once we get something more definitive from a scan.”

Asked how his side rallied after a second draining injury in as many weeks, Beveridge told reporters: “It’s been an interesting couple of weeks of that, hasn’t it?

Curnow’s fantastic four 1st half goals | 01:14

“I think there’s a disparity in many things in the game tonight. We started off the game in good fashion, and the things we spoke about beforehand came to the fore.

“But as the night went on, we probably needed our more experienced players really influencing the game. Obviously, Marcus (Bontempelli) was; we didn’t have enough elsewhere.

“But they (the Swans) were just more vibrant. Their speed, their work across the ground, they pressured us into aspects of the game that you don’t want to be accustomed to, and it just turned really, really ugly for us.”

MORE AFL COVERAGE:

FULL DOGS-SWANS FALLOUT: ‘Sickening’ fall shocks AFL as Swans stamp flag credentials with recruit’s seventh heaven

TIGER TROUBLES: What should be the AFL’s perfect rebuild has stumbled. A ‘promise’ proves it can still pay off

‘MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER’: Veteran host stunned by ‘gross overreach’ in slur ban reduction

The Dogs conceded 15 back-half turnovers in the last quarter alone, as the Swans piled on six more goals to round off the dominant victory.

“That’s (about) skill, it’s composure, it’s fatigue, many things. We’ve got to work through that together and remain optimistic,” Beveridge said.

“I just said to the players — I’m not a coach who won’t talk to their players after a difficult loss, because it is difficult to know what to say — but my message to them was ‘we’re here to support you, we’re here to look for the best version of ourselves’.

“And whether that’s next week or in six weeks’ time, who knows? But we’ve just got to deal with the injury toll, encourage and help the boys believe that they’re good enough to be in a winning Western Bulldogs team.

“The last few weeks it hasn’t been that, but who knows, it could be the following … there was a pride in what we were doing, but it fell apart, and that’s concerning.”

Blakey dishes out FIERY bump | 00:24

Things aren’t about to get any easier on the injury front, with Beveridge unable to provide optimism on the chances of Tim English (knee), Tom Liberatore (concussion) or Rory Lobb (hamstring) returning next week.

“Can’t really give you anything definitive on either (English nor Liberatore),” Beveridge said.

“Tim didn’t move too well the other day, so I wouldn’t think that he’s available next week, and we’ll tread really carefully with Tom. I’m not sure whether he’s available next week.

“He (Lobb) will be out for a while, he’ll be out for a month. He and James (O’Donnell) will be out for a little while.

“(Lobb) got through a bit of training, felt OK, he felt it in another spot a bit lower down, so we scanned it again and something showed up that was a bit risky, so we’ll need to be conservative with him.”

They all join Connor Budarick, Riley Garcia, Arty Jones and Cody Weightman on the sidelines, as the Dogs now prepare to play Fremantle in Round 8.