IS FREMANTLE up for the fight?

That's the question coach Justin Longmuir is asking after the club's 61-point loss to St Kilda on Friday night.

SAINTS v DOCKERS Full match coverage and stats

With midfield one-two punch Andy Brayshaw and Caleb Serong each held to fewer than 20 disposals, the Dockers recorded their equal 10th lowest score in history, kicking 5.3 (33), and had recorded just seven points to half-time.

It was a significant fall from grace after last week's stunning upset win over Adelaide.

"I think everyone at the football club at the moment should be questioning themselves," Longmuir said post-match.

"The first thing I look at after a performance like that, and any good leader should, is, 'What did I get wrong?' Like, I'm not sitting here blaming the players. I've got to look at my own performance this week, and am I contributing to us being an inconsistent team?

"So, of course I'm going to question myself. (I) can't just sit here and say it's all on the players."

A lack of consistency, and an apparent reliance on too few to start the charge has marred the club this year, and it has now lost its past five matches in Victoria.

"The main message after the game to the players is, 'Are we up for the challenge that an AFL season confronts us with?'" Longmuir said.

"Because we can't be that team that has the high highs and the low lows. We want to be a really consistent team that goes back to zero each week, understands what each team's strengths are, and be willing to prepare week in, week out to be that consistent team we need to be.

"And the results show we're not at the moment."

St Kilda got the jump on the Dockers, and the margin snowballed from there. As they were being beaten at the contest, the visitors were forced to attempt attacking movement from the back half, which was slow and stagnant.

"When we're playing at our best, we're taking away time and space and we turn the ball over (in) areas that make it easier to attack," Longmuir said.

"So, I didn't see the start of the game as a ball movement thing… we were beaten in the contest post-clearance, pre-clearance to start with, then we couldn't defend our front half."

The problems in the midfield were compounded by a significant injury to dynamic ball user Hayden Young, who re-injured the same hamstring that kept him off the park early in the season. He shuffled from the ground during the second quarter and was subbed out shortly after.

"We'll get it scanned, but it doesn't look great … it looks serious," Longmuir confirmed.

St Kilda's ability to get back on top in the contest after last week's loss to Brisbane was a positive sign, as the midfield combination of Jack Macrae, Jack Steele, and Hugo Garcia worked a treat.

There were no specific tagging or run-with roles assigned to shut down the Brayshaw and Serong pairing, rather head-to-head battles with "some good opponent responsibility", according to coach Ross Lyon.

"We didn't have a tag, (Marcus) Windhager just rolled around on the wing," Lyon said.

"It was very effective, which was a big win, but we had him there if we wanted to… we focus 90 per cent on ourselves during the week, and then at the back end we got to Fremantle in line meetings."

There were concerns in the second quarter that key defender Dougal Howard might be done with an adductor injury, but after 25 minutes with the doctors on the bench, he was able to play out the game. St Kilda's substitute – Tobie Travaglia – went unused after the Saints' sub was a key talking point last week.

"I actually said, 'Who comes off with adductors?'" Lyon said.

"That wasn't an injury in 2000 but it is now. But to answer your question, without being cute, I said we really need him if he can come back on. So, I think he was just a bit tight, the physios get down there in the moment, they stretch it, maybe a couple of Panadols, and he came on and I thought he was really effective.

"But it was critical that, to your point, he came back on. I actually said we can't do an early sub."

Matteas Phillipou, who was named earlier in the week for his first game of the season after a stress reaction in his femur, was a late out due to a corked quad.

"He was picked, and he had a knee-on-knee clash around his quad early in training. He went off and he said, 'I'll get up'… but we picked the team without him in, (the) doctors were never confident," Lyon said.