Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir has declared Hayden Young’s three gamebreaking goals in the second half of Friday night’s win over the Western Bulldogs are precisely why the club kept him in the midfield despite a series of injuries in recent seasons.

The Dockers came from behind to win 17.12 (114) to 15.12 (102) to register their seventh victory in a row. They recovered from a poor first half where Longmuir described his team’s pressure as “horrific” and Young broke the game apart.

He kicked two goals in less than two minutes during the third term and then followed up with an extraordinary banana goal from the forward pocket in the last quarter.

The left footer has played only 13 games across the last two seasons because of injury and there had been calls for Fremantle to move him to half-back. But Longmuir said match winners like Young must play in the midfield.

“He got some looks and finished off his work. I get asked why we don’t play him at half back. That’s why we don’t play him at half back,” he said.

“Because when he gets on a tear like that, and he gets the ball forward of centre, you see what he is able to do. It was good for him and good for us that he got a lick of the ice cream.”

Longmuir was fuming at quarter time when his team trailed by 26 points and his fears about being ambushed by an undermanned Bulldogs team were coming true.

But Fremantle’s leaders stood tall and Shai Bolton continued his extraordinary form. The Dockers led by only four points at three quarter time but Bolton had 11 disposals, five clearances and kicked one goal in the final term.

Longmuir said the way Bolton led his team when the Dogs launched a late comeback showed his class.

“He just bob’s up all game, but I was really proud of the way he handled the last five minutes of the game,” Longmuir said.

“He wants to have his hands on ball when the games on the line. I think he had 16 score involvements across the day.”

While the win, combined with Hawthorn’s draw on Thursday night has the Dockers now in an outright top two position, Longmuir said there are still areas of concern. He warned his team cannot continue to let teams fight back late in games.

“We’re struggling at the moment when we get in front,” he said.

“We handle the tight moments. When there’s a goal in it, we handle those moments really well. But we need to be able to be better than that. We shouldn’t let them back in the game. There’s a couple of things we can can be a bit more mature with and not allow that to happen.”