Western Bulldogs captain Brad Johnson denied that his team was affected by the build-up during the week surrounding his achievement of breaking the club's all-time games record against Fremantle at Etihad Stadium on Saturday.

The Bulldogs started the match will all guns blazing and after kicking nine of the first 10 goals, enjoyed a 44-point lead just 14 minutes into the second term.

But Fremantle manfully fought back into the contest and outscored the hosts in the second half to lose by 31 points.

Johnson, who now has played 342 matches, put the Bulldogs' substandard second half down to fatigue rather than being overwhelmed by the occasion.

"We were a bit knackered towards the end to be honest," Johnson said with one of his trademark smiles. "We fluctuated a bit throughout the game with certain things."

"I had probably a day-and-a-half of stuff," he said in reference to the build-up. "It wasn't a major week (long) thing it was probably a bit of Wednesday (and) Thursday so it didn't interrupt things too much."

However, Johnson's amazing milestone wasn't the only source of emotion for the Bulldogs on Saturday with defender Lindsay Gilbee's father passing away on Friday night.

Johnson revealed Gilbee insisted he wanted to take on the Dockers as it was his father's dying wish.

"It's probably been going on for a few weeks, so he's been able to deal with things along the way," Johnson said.

"His emotions have been up and down as you can understand and it came to a head last night for him."

"All you can do is support the guy and put that support back to him and his family and to get a win today was certainly part of that."

Coach Rodney Eade praised Gilbee for taking his place in the side and admitted expecting the rebounding backman to sit out the clash.

"I think it showed a lot of courage," said Eade. "I thought he performed well, I thought it didn't really affect his game ... it was probably as good as he's played for quite a while."

While Eade was pleased with the result, he slammed the Doggies' second-half performance as 'pedestrian'.

"I thought we were very pedestrian after half-time and just fluctuated a bit with our intensity and sort of did what had to be done when we probably should have been able to maybe nail the game a little bit earlier and that was disappointing," he said.

Second-gamer Brennan Stack provided a reliable avenue to goal with four majors and if he continues his good form, Eade suggested injured forward Scott Welsh may struggle to re-enter the team.

"We've always known that Brennan's got a lot of talent and he's a good kid, he works hard, he's still got a bit to go but he was able to take his chance today (which was) pleasing," Eade said.

"He (Welsh) may have to come back through Williamstown, I'm not too sure where that's at and Stack doing well probably gives him (Stack) an opportunity."