GIANTS coach Leon Cameron has accused his players of not wanting to get their hands dirty in the club's 87-point loss to West Coast at Domain Stadium.

GWS was just four points down at quarter-time but fell away dramatically, outscored by 14 goals to one after the first change.

It was that lack of competitiveness that had Cameron seething post-match.

"When it's not on your terms you've got to get your hands dirty, you've got to win contested footy," he said.

"If you can't win the contests and don't get your hands dirty you're always going to be chasing tail.

"We pride ourselves on being competitive for longer, tonight we took a step back, which is a really disappointing thing because in the first four rounds there were times when the opposition got on top of us and we stood our ground.

"Tonight when the opposition got on top of us in the second half we didn't stand our ground."

Cameron said he thought embarrassing losses like that were behind his side.

"(It's) a reality check in terms of where we sit," he said.

"It's disappointing to be five goals down at half-time and lose by 80-odd points. That's not us, hasn't been us in the NAB Cup or the first four weeks.

"We thought we had gone away from that … unfortunately it reared its head again tonight. It seems to be against the Eagles and we need to find a way next time we play them to make sure we don't serve up that sort of tripe.

"When it doesn't work for you and it's not on your terms at times you've got to be able to dig in and play really tough good defensive footy and not let the opposition score when it's not working out for you.

"We let ourselves down. "

The GIANTS face premiers Hawthorn next week, a task Cameron said was exciting more than daunting.

"I will absolutely make sure it was an aberration because we need to get back on the bike against Hawthorn. We get to play our first home game in Sydney in round six against the premiers," he said.

"We had a fantastic duel with them last year at the MCG and went down by a goal, and we know that if we put four quarters together we can take it up to a lot of sides."