A philosophical Blake Acres says his body hasn’t allowed him to recapture his strong pre-season form, after being dropped for last weekend’s win over Collingwood.

The Fremantle recruit looked to be a brilliant addition, impressing in two intra-club hit-outs earlier this year before starring in the Dockers’ first Marsh Community Series game against Carlton with a game-high 31 disposals.

But Acres has been unable to reproduce that form after suffering a serious hamstring tendon injury followed by a calf problem.

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The 24-year-old made a belated club debut against his old side St Kilda in round six, gathering 11, 17 and 10 disposals in three games before being axed.

The powerfully-built midfielder said he needed to improve his fitness and was confident he could still have an impact this season.

Acres wasn’t worried about not having any genuine second-level football to push his case.

“For me, it wasn’t really footy related. Just building my fitness base again and getting back to what I was good at before I got injured,” he told 6PR.

“That was more from me, to be honest. I probably hadn’t been playing as good footy as I was before I was injured and me and JL (coach Justin Longmuir) both agreed on that.

“I’m just going to get back to playing to my strengths and if that’s just at training that’s fine and I’ll just try to get back into the team that way. That’s easy for me to work on, so I’ll just be doing that and hopefully get back in the side soon.”

Acres said he knew his comeback would be difficult.

“I had a few injuries and I missed a lot of footy, 16 weeks or something. It was always going to be tough when I was coming back,” he said.

“Obviously disappointed getting dropped, but a few good guys playing in the twos are playing good footy and got rewarded for it and played good on the weekend as well.”