Fremantle coach Ross Lyon has praised his players' "character to keep on fighting", after their second upset win in a week.

The Freo Dockers overcame a sloppy second quarter to reverse a 27-point deficit and beat Melbourne by two points at the MCG on Saturday.

The win comes seven days after their surprise defeat of the Western Bulldogs at home, which came following Lyon's declaration it was time to start "playing the kids" after their disastrous round two 89-point loss to Port Adelaide.

"It's nice to get the reward," Lyon said, after the triumph over the Demons.

"If you're going to lay there exhausted having spent everything, that's the price, and if you get the four points, that helps to fuel your belief.

"We feel our belief in ourselves is growing in what we're looking to do."

Fremantle emerged a different side after the half-time break, having addressed what the coach described as "some lack of discipline".

Brad Hill gave away back-to-back 50m penalties for umpire abuse in the second quarter, after Michael Walters handed one off for not returning the ball in the first.

Lyon said talking to the players about the two 50m penalties, along with setting an intention to compete harder, helped spark the seven-goals-to-none third term.

"At the end of the day, it's not about strategies or tactics; it's about getting to work and being hard and disciplined and running and working, and I thought we did that," he said.

"We were interstate, we were down … both teams were in the game and slaughtering the ball a bit, and we just slaughtered it a little bit more.

"We had some lack of discipline on some 50s, in particular Brad Hill, I spoke to him and we know he's a good lad.

"Half time was about tightening up our disciplines and competing a little bit fiercer, and it tends to wallpaper over a lot of the other stuff that's going on … I thought we did that."

Lyon was pleased with the flexibility midfielders Lachie Neale, David Mundy, Nat Fyfe and Stephen Hill offered when pushed forward, with the foursome contributing nine goals between them.

He was also happy for new Freo Dockers' recruit Cam McCarthy, who had his best game for the club with an impressive first quarter and the match-winning goal with 90 seconds left.


"On the back of that goal, there was some hard work up the field, which we know there always is," Lyon said.

"But we're buoyant and I'm buoyant for Cam, a young forward, he's just coming to hand and building that chemistry with the group, so that's really pleasing."