Port Adelaide coach Matthew Primus fears his side's shocking recent performances make it more likely the AFL club will lose players to rivals.

Tall defenders Alipate Carlile and Jackson Trengove are among those out of contract and believed to be considering moving.

Primus said back-to-back record losses, to Collingwood by 138 points then to Hawthorn by 165 points, would make it tougher to convince them to stay.

"It does, for sure. It would be a lot easier if we had have won the past two weeks or won 10 games this year, it would be easier to sell that message to those guys who are out of contract," Primus said.

"That's difficult, but the club's doing the best they can to convince them there's a future here.

"But at the moment I'm sure they're not thinking positively about their future here."

Primus said while he still remained a believer in his own ability, the talent of his core group of players, and the broad direction of the club, he could not speculate how many years away a finals appearance might be.

"It's pie in the sky stuff having a look at it at the moment. We're a million miles away from it," he said.

Primus said the first step was finding players prepared to fully commit themselves to the cause.

He said there was no way they would suffer losses as big as the past two rounds if every player was giving their all.

"Until you sort out the issues of our list and who wants to actually be here and play for our football club, you're not going to sort out all the other stuff."

The first-year coach will personally demand an answer of each member of Saturday's side on whether they gave their all.

"We asked them to go away and think about their commitment to each other and the club," he said.

"Come Monday and give us an answer if you really were committed this week to coming out and preparing to play and we'll see how many honest answers we'll get."

But he said the more worthwhile answers would comethrough on-field actions, as players had publicly promised during the week to atone for the performance against Collingwood, but failed to deliver.

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