After increasing their training load in the past month, Western Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade has urged his team to tough out the remaining five matches of the season.

The Bulldogs have stepped up their workload since the mid-season break in an attempt to be at their physical peak come September.

The extra conditioning has involved more running and longer training sessions, particularly when the team have longer breaks between AFL games.

But the by-product of it has seen the Bulldogs tire in the past fortnight.

They suffered a last quarter fade-out against Geelong at Skilled Stadium in round 16 and surrendered a 37-point lead against Carlton last Sunday at Telstra Dome to lose by 28 points.

But coach Rodney Eade said his team had to be more resilient in the face of the extra work.

"There's some things we're doing differently there's no doubt about that," Eade said.

"After the break most teams have a rest but from that time, over the last four weeks, we've stepped up our training a bit.

"It may count against you at some stage (but) having said that you've got to be able to hang in tough."

Midfielder Matthew Boyd said the group needed to cope with what was thrown at them at training.

"We're professional athletes, so doing a little bit of extra training here and there is no big deal," he said.

What is not in dispute in the Bulldogs' past two losses is their drop in hardness around the ball.

They were beaten in the contested possession count, a cornerstone of their dramatic improvement this season and the club has made it a special focus this week.

"There's no excuse for what happened on the weekend," Eade said.

"We've talked about it, done a fair bit of soul searching, obviously we're trained for it.

"Up until the last two weeks I think we were second in contested possession and hard ball gets in the competition and our pressure has been very good.

"I think those three areas have dropped off a little bit, certainly last week."

Out-of-form half-forward Jason Akermanis said the team will relish playing Sydney this Sunday in Canberra, given the Swans' hard-nosed brand of football.

Akermanis, who had just eight possessions against Carlton, believed a more relaxed attitude would help overcome his slump.

"If you've got talent and you persist it will change," he said.

"There's no doubt I've got to lift my workrate and things will turn. I've been around long enough and I know when it goes a little bit south.

"It's more where I'm just thinking too much, where I'm worried about stuff I shouldn't be, so that's the bottom line."

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