Port Adelaide players are taking longer than expected to grasp the philosophies of new coach Matthew Primus, ruckman Dean Brogan says.

But Brogan says morale remains high despite three losses to start the season, including away thrashings to Collingwood and Geelong.

Primus was wary of deflating his young group with harsh critiques, Brogan said.

"Having a new coach on board and all the things that happened in the offseason, it just takes time," he said on Tuesday.

"Matty's philosophies are taking a lot longer (to grasp) than what we really wanted too.

"We have got 19 games to go ... you don't want to deflate the group too much, he (Primus) has been very positive but he just keeps selling the same message and eventually it's going to happen."

But Brogan said feedback from their loss in Geelong on Sunday had been honest.

"You can't hide from the fact that we got smacked by 79 points in Geelong," he said.

"And to be fair, our last quarter, we may as well have not even been there, you can't sugar coat that, you can't hide.

" ... But at the same time you have got to look at how we played in the first quarter and really take that away from the game - as well as the bad stuff, take the positives more than the negatives."

Brogan, who has been acting captain in the absence of the injured Dom Cassisi, said Port's challenge was to sustain their efforts.

"We all know it hasn't been a great start for us but it hasn't been all doom and gloom," he said.

"We have actually played some really good footy at times, the biggest thing for us is being able to sustain that over four quarters."

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