After the Demons produced a strong effort against the Tigers the previous round, Freo blew the Dees out of the contest by quarter-time.
After trailing by 40 points at the first change, Melbourne languished by 71 points at the long break.
“It’s very frustrating when you’re on the end of those types of losses and it was definitely a tale of two halves and we shot ourselves in the foot in that first half,” Trengove told melbournefc.com.au.
“Freo, credit to them, they’re a very good defensive side and they put us under the pump and we just weren’t up for it unfortunately.
“But the positives out of it were that we did fight it out in the second half and we won that third quarter, but to be honest, we lost it in the first quarter and it was really, really frustrating.”
Trengove, who kicked two goals and had 20 touches, was pleased with Melbourne’s start, before Fremantle booted seven majors to one in the first quarter.
“I thought we got off to a great start, with Wattsy (Jack Watts) kicking that first goal. Then Freo put us under the pump and we just weren’t up for that challenge … which was really annoying, because we knew that was going to be the case going into that game,” he said.
“The first half was nothing more than frustrating. We weren’t able to play the way that we wanted to and we were reactive to what they (Fremantle) were doing and then they piled on the goals and we were unable to do anything about it, which was really annoying.
“Persistence is the real key here and we just have to keep working and keep persisting because that’s the only way we’re going to get out of it.”
After a first half shocker, Trengove was pleased his side showed some fight in the third term when it kicked 3.1 to 2.4.
“You never like going into half-time that far down, but … [you’ve just got to] put it all behind you and come out with a fresh start.
“There’s no point dwelling on it, because that’s going to get you nowhere.
“We really just tried to put that aside and start again and unfortunately the damage was done at that point in time, but we fought back to an extent, but it was unacceptable.”
