STARING down the barrel of three consecutive losses, including 70 and record 100-point drubbings, Fremantle has found its way back to an even win-loss ledger, and dismantled an Essendon side that is doing some soul searching of its own. In direct contrast to the Dockers, the Bombers racked up three early wins, but have since lost three by 31, 52 and now 48 points to now join the Dockers at a 3-3 record.

Fremantle coach Lisa Webb said the performance was “definitely much better” and that the belief within the group was strong. Having moved up the ladder to percentage outside the top eight and gaining almost 30 per cent in the past fortnight, the Dockers are back in form.

“Obviously our hunt and willingness to get to every contest was impressive by the girls,” Webb said. “They’re fierce, they’ve been growing and getting better in every facet that we’ve wanted to, but we’ve still got a long way to go so we’ll enjoy this and then get on the road for Carlton.”

While the Dockers comprehensively beat the Bombers on the scoreboard and in the pressure stakes during the 9.2 (56) to 1.2 (8) victory at Fremantle Oval. Fremantle laid 30 more tackles including a damning 23-1 inside 50, while still taking 10 marks to three in the same third of play from 13 more entries (37-21).

When asked if there was anything to improve on out of the game given the completeness from which the Dockers performed, Webb said there were always lessons to be learnt to make the side better.

“I think for a while there we were struggling in clearance a little bit,” she said. “They were throwing some numbers inside and then Bonnie Toogood, she’s a really good player and made it really hard for us to move the ball forward so we had to move through a few things in-game.

“I think for us to be able to navigate those, keep building, understanding what the game’s throwing at us, and how we can put our plan in place and execute is something that I’m really pleased with. “As I said, steps in the right direction but still a fair way to go.”

Webb said despite the frustrating weeks across Rounds 2 and 3, Fremantle had been “building towards” the kind of performance the Dockers executed against the Bombers.

“We’ve had a few players in and out, we’ve had quite a few debutants and we’ve still got a few to come back, so trying to get that connection and gel is obviously a strength of ours, but tweaking to different players in our team is something that takes time,” she said.

“We’ve still got some players to come back, and it’s great to have a debutant today in Poppy (Stockwell). “It’s a fine balance isn’t it? “We want to play our best footy, we’re building towards that, but there’s still plenty of things to take out of the game.”

Turning around the form from those tough couple of weeks was more about “tweaking a few things” on the team defence, which seemed to work perfectly against a Bombers side that struggled to score throughout the four quarters.

“We were certainly reactive to the ball, we just needed to give the girls back the belief and the confidence that their come forward pressure when they’re proactive and reading the cues of the kicker and the flight of the footy were far better team defence,” Webb said. “Against those teams you can’t be half a second off otherwise you get hurt.

“We’ve got great backs down there, we just weren’t getting it right from a team D so it wasn’t just on the backs of course, it’s the way we were defending the ball from the front half as well. “So a few tweaks for that as I said, we weren’t far off against Sydney but I’m glad that we got the last couple of games back on track.”

Essendon coach Nat Wood said it was another frustrating game for the Bombers, especially on the scoring front, having kicked 1.2 (8) in consecutive weeks and being unable to do any scoreboard damage.

“That was a really tough game, it’s been three poor performances from us,” Wood said. “Spoke to the group, we’re particularly starting on the back foot, letting teams get a lot of ascendancy. I thought there were some teams from a predictability point of view that. We were able to get right from a stoppage structure, but Fremantle were on the front foot, they were attacking the air and the ground a lot more assertively and a lot cleaner than we were.

“We weren’t able to bridge any gap, and also not able to generate scoreboard momentum at any time so that’s one thing to lose a game, but it’s probably another thing for us two weeks in a row with our ball movement, we haven’t been able to hit the scoreboard and be able to be in the game.”