Fremantle coach Mark Harvey praised his side's character after the Dockers overcame a 34-point deficit on their way to defeating the Demons by 46 points - their third win of the season.

Harvey said he made several structural changes to his team for this week's clash at Subiaco, changes which appeared to have unsettled the Dockers during a horror first quarter where they managed just two points to the Demons five goals.

But, once Harvey's players settled into some new roles, the Dockers swept Melbourne aside, scoring 16 goals to five from quarter-time onwards as Fremantle ran the lines and harassed the Demons into numerous turnovers.

"We were on the backfoot from the start, but it was good to see that we can show initiative and get ourselves out of that situation," said Harvey.

"I actually made five or six different changes to the side from a structural point of view ... so that sort of made us feel a little bit uneasy when things weren't going our way."

"Melbourne were pushing quickly inside the forward 50 and once we got a couple of players in those positions to hurt them where they were doing that, that's when we took more control of what was going on."

"Both sides have got a lot of young players in their sides at the moment so it's really hard to judge what comes out of that game but ... to be five goals down and to show some initiative, not panic on the back of some recent history, it was good."

While some of those changes were forced on the Fremantle coach by Dean Solomon's suspension and a knee injury to young gun Rhys Palmer, Harvey said his experimental approach to player positions was necessary after its worst loss of the season at Geelong last week.

"Sometimes when you go through a season like this, you need to mentally give your players a break from the regular things they do for the team, so there was a bit of that and also (I'm) still finding out (things about) the evolving midfield that we need to get together," Harvey said.

Harvey also denied this was Shaun McManus' last game for the club, saying the veteran Docker was just enjoying the moment when captured by television cameras holding his children as the players sang the club's song.

"He (McManus) played really well today, so it's just to monitor him and see what happens, there was obviously the article today that suggested his last game's in a couple of weeks time, we'll wait and see," Harvey said.