The Power had a chance to cement their place in the eight against Carlton at home on Sunday, but struggled for consistent effort across the four quarters and went down by 54 points.
Essendon took full advantage of the situation at AAMI Stadium, jumping into eighth position with an upset win over ladder-leader St Kilda.
Port Adelaide, like Hawthorn and the Bombers, has had numerous opportunities over the past month to guarantee itself a slice of finals action but has failed to capitalise.
Thomas said the Power would now have to win their last two games of the season against the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba and North Melbourne to avoid missing the eight for the second straight year.
“The last few weeks the footy gods have been with us, but we knew that sort of luck wouldn’t last forever,” Thomas said.
“We were keeping our fingers crossed that St Kilda had a better second half against Essendon, but the Saints didn’t quite get there. All we can do now is look after ourselves.
“We’ll head to Brisbane with a positive attitude, try and get a win and see what happens.”
The Power, who kicked the opening two goals of the game, trailed by just seven points early in the last quarter but the Blues’ slammed on six unanswered goals to overrun the home side.
Thomas said his tired team’s shock and awe tactics in the final term had left them open to a scoreboard blow out.
“Our focus was to start the game really well and the thing that probably let us down early was that Josh Carr went off in the first 10 minutes and by the fourth quarter we didn’t have many rotations,” he said.
“What we tried was to blitz a lot to try and get the game going and just throw everything out there on the line. When you do that you’re not trying to save the game you’re trying to win it and, obviously, there’s going to be a point where something gives.
“It was obviously disappointing to lose by that much, but that was part of the instruction.”
Thomas, who has played just 10 games this season because of injury, finished with 22 possessions, seven marks and a goal in a good individual effort.
He also played a supporting role behind premier tagger Kane Cornes on Carlton skipper Chris Judd.
“Judd kicked a goal on me, so it wasn’t great but it was good to be out there and try and help Kane. I thought Kane did a really good job. Judd didn’t have much impact on the game and he missed a couple of goals as well, which was probably because of Kane’s pressure,” Thomas said.
“It was good to have a run on such a great player, but I don’t think I could’ve kept up with Judd for too long…I was pretty tired.”
