The Reds' finals hopes took a major hit after the 3-0 defeat which leaves them in ninth, four points outside the top six with eight games to play.

“It has told me a lot about what we’ve really got in terms of playing personnel but also what we’ve got in terms of character,” Kosmina said.

“(I learnt that) we struggle when it gets a bit tough. Things don’t go right for us and we drop our heads too easily, way too easily.

“In the first 15 minutes you won’t see better football than that anywhere in the league at the moment – it was unbelievable. We could have been three goals up after 15 minutes, but you don’t take your chances and look what happens.

“You go down the other end, you go to sleep, you make silly mistakes – school boy mistakes that shouldn’t happen at this level.”

The Reds coach also refuted any suggestions that a third game in eight days had caught up with his team after their midweek match in Bathurst.

“Look at the first 15 minutes – they didn’t look tired then. They didn’t look tired at the end of the game either, Perth looked more tired than us.”

Going into next Friday night’s home game against second placed Wellington Phoenix, Kosmina knows the only result that will be acceptable.

“We’ve got to win at home. You can write this one off, we got a bad one out of our system,” Kosmina said.

“It has been a hard week, we could have had nine points, we should have had nine points if you look at the way we played, and we got one, so we’ve got a bit of work to do and a bit of chasing to do and we’ve got to win next week.

“They (the players) are good enough to do it, they’ve just got to believe it. I certainly do but I don’t know if they do and that gets back to this new culture change that was generated 12 months ago when the whole team was shifted out for no apparent reason.”