FREMANTLE took its eye off the ball briefly but now has a "good base of evidence" to suggest its best football is good enough to beat anyone, according to coach Justin Longmuir. 

The Dockers squared their season at 7-7 with an impressive 32-point win against Essendon on Saturday night, with the team bouncing back in style from back-to-back defeats and rediscovering its dangerous best.  

Longmuir said the win was a reflection of the team getting back to "valuing the right things" and owning their shortcomings against Greater Western Sydney, with the challenge now ahead of them to continue delivering at that level.  

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"We respected the game and we respected the opposition, and we got back to what we value as a team," Longmuir said.

"We are a young team that maybe took our eye off the ball for a little bit. But, you know, we've won five of our last seven games. 

"We've got a good base of evidence to suggest that when our best is on it's good enough to beat anyone. So we'll just stay on them, and they'll stay on each other." 

A feature of Saturday night's win was the influence of Luke Jackson (three goals) in attack as ruckman Sean Darcy returned from injury, balancing the attacking group and taking pressure off young pair Jye Amiss and Josh Treacy.

"He's been really working on his forward craft and in a couple of critical moments he just presented at the footy and took marks inside 50," Longmuir said of Jackson. 

"When he doesn't mark it, he gives our forwards a crack at ground level which has been a real strength of our game across the season. He brings our small forwards into the game as well."

Longmuir was also pleased with the performances of second-year midfielder Matt Johnson (16 disposals and eight marks) and wingman Liam Henry, who had a career-high 32 disposals in his best AFL game. 

"I think with Liam it's been about consistency. I think we've all seen his really good efforts and moments in games that are really strong," Longmuir said. 

"It's about bringing up maybe the bottom end and making it more of a consistent game and being on task for longer and being able to concentrate for long periods of time and not have those lapses in games which let him down. 

"He was really good tonight … he's been working really hard on his game and this is good reward for effort."

Longmuir said captain Alex Pearce, who was substituted in the fourth quarter, had been managing a lower leg injury and the club took the opportunity to reduce his game time. 

Johnson suffered a heavy cork late in the game but had proven his ability to bounce back immediately from similar hits.  

Essendon's place in the top eight is now unstable after moving to 8-6 ahead of a clash against Port Adelaide at the MCG next Saturday. 

Coach Brad Scott said the Bombers had addressed the trend for teams to perform poorly after their bye this season, with scores from stoppages the difference in the game after Fremantle kicked 8.5 from the source. 

"We talked a fair bit about our attitude. We didn't shy away from the way teams are performing post-bye, but you know, certainly the way that we started was really positive," Scott said.  

"I thought we dominated most facets of the of the game in the first quarter and didn't get enough reward on the scoreboard.

"They scored 30 per cent of their scores directly from centre bounces. That was the opposite of last week for them in terms of the centre bounce was a problem. 

"They had eight shots from centre bounces, we had one. The rest of the game for us, to be honest, wasn't too bad."

Scott said defender Brandon Zerk-Thatcher had suffered adductor tightness after returning to the field after a heavy hit. 

The coach said ruckman Sam Draper, who missed with a hip injury, did not have a timeline for his return but was not a long-term concern. 

"He could play (but) he'd be struggling with it," Scott said. 

"And at round 15, we're just going to have him gradually sort of fall off the cliff, slowly over the course of the year when we've been wanting to get Nick Bryan into our side and Andrew Phillips is going well. 

"So we just want to get it right. And if that takes one week, fantastic. If it takes longer than that, we'll just assess it week by week."