FREMANTLE coach Justin Longmuir never doubted "it would click" for Luke Jackson after the gun recruit brushed aside early-season criticism with three goals in a starring display in Saturday's 17-point win over Sydney.

The Dockers landed the 2021 Rising Star from Melbourne in the off-season in a lucrative deal but he received strong criticism after managing only one mark and no goals in his first two games for the club earlier this season.

But Jackson, who earned all 10 AFL Coaches Association votes in last week's 69-point win over Hawthorn, has gradually improved and was critical in Saturday's victory at the SCG with a season-high three goals, taking seven marks with 17 disposals and 11 hit-outs.

"I knew it would click because of what I see during the week with him, he works his backside off at his forward craft," Longmuir said post-game.

"In there watching vision and doing extras after training and pre-training, so I knew the marks would start sticking. That was the thing missing earlier in the year, he was creating opportunities for himself but they just weren’t sticking. Now they’re sticking and he’s getting a lot of confidence off the back of that which is impacting other areas of his game.

SWANS v DOCKERS Full match coverage and stats

"He was great at ground level, I thought his pressure was good and when he goes in the ruck it just gives a bit of a different dynamic in there as well. So both he and Sean (Darcy) were awesome today."

Both coaches acknowledged Jackson's ruck combination with Darcy, who had 44 hit-outs with nine clearances and 14 contested possessions, was pivotal to Fremantle's success. Darcy, in particular, helped Fremantle win clearances 49-36 and centre clearances 20-9 and Longmuir said their combination was starting to flourish.

"It’s back-to-back weeks where they’ve both been really solid," he said.

"I thought Sean was dominant in the ruck, especially early, he gave us ascendancy at ground level and it was probably our best result out of clearance we’ve had this year.

"Luke was just feeling it down forward, they’re a bit under sized obviously so we picked the three talls to try and expose that, it didn’t work for us in the first half, but once we got a few more one-on-one looks in that second quarter we started dominating the air a bit more. Luke was a big part of that and he’s growing in confidence."

Longmuir was also full of praise for young tall forwards Josh Treacy, 20, and Jye Amiss, 19, who took six and five marks respectively and booted two goals each, in a positive sign for the club's future attacking options in light of Rory Lobb's exit and Matthew Taberner's long-term injury.

"They are young key forwards trying to make it and the last couple of weeks we’ve had a bit more ball movement, a bit more supply which has helped them get some one-on-ones," he said.

"They’re going to go through their ups and downs but the last couple of weeks I’ve been really impressed with their form and they’re building their careers."

The victory means 2022 finalists Fremantle achieved back-to-back wins for the first time this year, improving its win-loss record to 4-5 to stay in the top-eight hunt.

"It was really important that we build off last week and we kept on building on our contest work and our tackle pressure," Longmuir said.

"I thought given who we played today, and that being a strength of theirs, I thought that went to another level.

"We want to be a consistent team, we understand that sometimes with young teams you can go up and down a little bit... Now we need to maintain that."

Two-time Brownlow medalist Nat Fyfe played as the substitute for the second straight week, gathering six disposals and two tackles after coming on at three-quarter time although Longmuir was reluctant to commit to him starting in the 22 next week.

"We'll work that out," he said.

"He's handling it really professionally. He's involved in the decision-making process. I thought he had an impact when he came on... We'll keep looking at the best way to build his game."

Sydney's cause wasn’t helped by further injuries, losing co-captain Callum Mills to a calf injury in the first quarter, while young forward Logan McDonald tried to play through an ankle issue but was eventually benched.

Swans coach John Longmire said both were "highly unlikely" to play next week, joining their long injury list with Dane Rampe, Sam Reid, Joel Amartey, Peter Ladhams, Tom and Paddy McCartin already out for the Swans who are 3-6 after losing six of their past seven games.

"We've used up our tickets (with injuries) the last few years," Longmire said.

"We've had just one of those occurrences that seems to happen with structural players like Logan or good players like Millsy.

"It's been disjointed. We've had players in and out the whole season. We're trying to get the momentum going and we lose a couple every week. That's the reality of it."

Longmire pointed to his side getting "smashed" at centre bounces, which they lost 15-2 in the second and third quarters combined, led by Darcy's ruck dominance.

"Overall, we're just not as fluent with or without the ball," he said.

"We just got smashed at [centre bounces]. The second and third quarters I don’t think I've seen figures like it. To win only two clearances for a half of footy, it puts everyone on the back foot and didn’t give us momentum going forward."