MARK Harvey saw a glimpse of the future in Sunday's win over Port Adelaide, and Fremantle's focus on defensive pressure came from the unlikeliest of sources.

Harvey found himself watching ESPN's recent coverage of the NFL Hall of Fame from Ohio, and took great interest in the induction of former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas, who was renowned for his ferocious defence.

Harvey spoke of how Thomas was respected for the pressure he applied on the opposition, and used it to inspire his young team to a dominant 42-point win over Port Adelaide.

"Derrick was a guy that played for the Kansas City Chiefs, and when I look at St Kilda, their main emphasis is on pressure. This guy (Thomas) just got inducted into the Hall of Fame after dying five years ago, and was held in higher esteem than their quarterback because of his pressure," Harvey said.

"His main role was to get to the opposition quarterback to create turnovers, make sure he didn’t have a long time to make a decision, create a fumble or to sack him, which is to tackle him. It's those correlations that you can make from a different sport of how you apply pressure on the opposition, and it's one of the things I spoke to the players about before the game."

Harvey wasn’t surprised by his team's good performance on Sunday, and is also relieved for all involved with the club that no tanking talk can now come Fremantle's way after its fifth win of the year.

"I thought we outplayed the Bulldogs last week after half-time. We had eight days' break, made a few changes, and have been working on a lot of things around the club that are starting to pay off. You can see where we are going when we play like that," he said.

"We haven’t been able to beat sides like that yet. We've beaten the bottom-tier sides on the ladder, and we have three weeks to go now. We aim to win them, and now the other issue that has been spoken about heavily has been thrown out the window. That's satisfying for the people that have followed Fremantle for a long period of time, and, more importantly, our playing group."

Chris Mayne and Des Headland made a massive difference to Fremantle's forward line with seven goals between them, and with Luke McPharlin and Hayden Ballantyne soon to return, and with Rhys Palmer, Ryan Crowley, Michael Johnson and Roger Hayden still out, Harvey is optimistic of Fremantle's future.

"We've only had a couple of flat spots this year where we've carried the burden of taking a young team around Australia, but we've been right at the forefront of the majority of games," he said.

"The stability, composure and tempo that the young players are starting to pick up now is a lot more apparent. When you have Headland and Mayne come back in, who we haven’t had all year, and can add McPharlin and Ballantyne, then you can start to understand what we are starting to do."

First-year AFL players Greg Broughton, Stephen Hill, Nick Suban, Clancee Pearce, Jay van Berlo and Matt de Boer continue to show no signs of fatigue. Fremantle had 120 interchange rotations on Sunday, and Harvey is confident of a strong finish in the last three games.

"The competition is tired right now, and it's about who can have the required energy over the last three games," he said.

"There (are) a lot of tired players and injuries going around, so it's about managing all of that. We don't set out to achieve 120 (rotations), but we are certainly mindful of rotating heavily at this stage."

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