Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley says his team needs to rediscover its self-belief in a hurry after being knocked out of the top four by West Coast on Saturday night.

The Magpies were given a midfield lesson at Patersons Stadium, while battling key forwards Travis Cloke and Chris Dawes were held goalless for a second straight week.

Read the match report from Saturday night's loss.

The team could return to the top four if it beats Essendon next Saturday night, but Buckley said Collingwood's psyche was a concern with finals on the horizon.

"I'm taking about psyche, the psyche of our team and the belief of our team," he said on Saturday night. 

"We're a week away from a finals series and we've got to find it in a hurry … at the moment - either individually or collectively - we don't have that.

"We've played some pretty good football this year, but we've played some poor football in recent weeks.

"It's there, (but) at the moment the players are finding it hard to see and hard to feel and not getting it done."

Collingwood appeared to have control of Saturday night's match in the first quarter, taking a 12-point lead into the first break, but things unravelled thereafter.

West Coast kicked nine unanswered goals after quarter time and Buckley said the home team had "outlasted us, outworked us and outstayed us".

With ruckman Darren Jolly sidelined, Cameron Wood and Dawes were dominated in the ruck by Nic Naitanui and Dean Cox, who gave their team a 60-12 edge in hit-outs.

Andrew Krakouer wins 27 possessions in the VFL.

At ground level, the Magpies midfielders were clearly beaten, losing the clearances 48-23.

"We thought our structure was pretty solid in the first quarter," Buckley said.

"If you can play a game style and execute a game style for one quarter, you'd expect that you should be able to do it for four.

"We didn't roll our sleeves up and dig in.

"We lost contested ball by 33. You're not going to win any games when you lose contested ball by that much. We were nutted convincingly in that regard."

Buckley said Jolly would be available for next Saturday night's clash with Essendon at the MCG, but otherwise Collingwood had fielded its best team against West Coast.

"That makes it even more disappointing," he said. 

"Clearly you go to the players that are performing at either level at the moment that have got the confidence and belief that they're going to be able to execute.

"We'll pick a 22 that are ready to go and we'll come with a plan. We'll come ready to play, and we need to execute … for more than 30 minutes."