RODNEY Eade brought his team to Perth with the mission of taking four points from Fremantle but even he was delighted with the emphatic nature of the Western Bulldogs' 63-point win.

With Robert Murphy a late withdrawal, Adam Cooney not at full fitness and Fremantle coming off a strong pre-season, Eade certainly expected a tough fight but was delighted with how his team came out thumping winners.

"It was a pleasing four-quarter effort. Our focus and mission was to come over and just get the four points because we knew it was going to be hard with the travel and Fremantle's pre-season form was encouraging," he said.

"The mission was to get the four points but to win by that much was a credit to the players for persevering with their physicality and we still had a lot of run at the end, which was good."

It was the spread of good form all over the ground that particularly pleased Eade.

While Mitch Hahn kicked five goals, Jason Akermanis, Nathan Eagleton, Daniel Giansiracusa, Lindsay Gilbee, Ryan Griffen and Shaun Higgins all kicked multiple goals as well as winning plenty of ball further up the ground.

"Griff set the game alight and was terrific but that's where we want to share the load in the midfield and not rely on him or Adam [Cooney]. Crossy was good, Matthew Boyd played well, Giansiracusa was good and Higgins went through there, so it was a good mix," he said.

"Higgins was pleasing, even though he has a bit to learn. We put him in the midfield over the pre-season and with Cooney's game time down Higgo could step up and it gives us another quality player to work through there.

"We knew we'd need an even spread like that having a smaller forward line and it worked well. Even though Brad Johnson didn’t get goals, his ability to lead from the front and contest two-on-one a lot of the time was inspiring for his teammates."

Murphy was a late withdrawal from the game as he continues to work on recovering from knee surgery and Eade can't definitely say when he'll return, but expects it to be within a couple of weeks.

"He came over but we didn’t really think he would play. His thigh needs to get stronger, he needs more confidence in it and his fitness level is OK, so once that's attainable, he'll be able to play," he said.

"That will be most likely in round three. He had a patella tendon operation and had to have that resewn. It's a big operation and Tom Harley didn’t play after round nine when he had it done a couple of years ago.”

Eade and his Bulldogs now turn their focus to North Melbourne on Sunday and attempting to overcome a recent run of outs against the Roos.

"We just have to worry about next week and we have a big game against the Kangaroos who have had the wood over us," he said.

"It's at the MCG and is a recognition game for the volunteers that helped with the bushfires and we want all our members and supporters to get there.”