Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir has hailed the way his team responded to the intense focus they came under throughout the week to produce a come from behind win over Hawthorn and climb back into the top eight.

The Dockers and Longmuir were put under the spotlight all week after their loss to Sydney at the SCG saw them fall behind in the finals race.

Longmuir’s coaching credentials were questioned, midfield star Caleb Serong’s ability to handle close attention received plenty of focus and the team’s finals hopes were on the line.

But they kicked four unanswered goals in the last quarter to beat Hawthorn 12.5 (77) to 9.10 (64).

Longmuir said the performance showed the team was able to ignore distractions and retain faith in their own beliefs.

“It’s a sign of our maturity and probably a sign of the motto we’ve lived by over the last eight to 10 weeks of living in the moment, making sure we win each day and try to prepare ourselves the best for each opposition,” Longmuir said.

“We didn’t overreact to last week. The facts are we didn’t play well in the first half last week, we were on the road to a resurgent Sydney who have got all their stars back and there was one point in it in the last quarter.

“That game could have gone either way. It didn’t go our way but we treated it for what it was.

“We didn’t overreact. We’re not going to overreact to a win this week. I understand the challenges we’ve got ahead of us but we’ve just been trying to live in the moment.”

Serong had 29 disposals and nine clearances in a typically hard nosed game while Andrew Brayshaw finished the game with blood streaming from a cut after 29 touches and 14 tackles.

Sam Switkowski returned to the team to kick three goals and the Dockers again showed their improvement when playing in tight contests.

Longmuir said the team had was being rewarded for the work they’d done on preparing for close games after constantly being disappointed last year.

“We trained it a lot over the pre-season. We haven’t missed a beat with reviewing that side of our game,” he said.

“We’ve put a lot of effort into making sure players understand time on the clock versus what the scoreboard is telling us and how we handle those situations. Our composure was good in the last quarter - probably the best it was for the whole game.

“In the last quarter we trusted ourselves a little bit more. It didn’t look like we panicked at any stage in that last quarter. We understood we had 30 minutes to hit the front.

“I think our leadership across the group has grown off he back of being able to train those scenarios. More players understand what’s needed in those moments.”

The Dockers are now eighth on the ladder ahead of a massive game against ladder-leaders Collingwood at the MCG on Sunday.