Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew says his team is built a little different this season after its 36-point upset over Fremantle on Sunday.

Dew was full of praise for the Suns after they restricted the high-flying Dockers to just four goals from 64 inside 50s.

The victory puts Gold Coast just one win outside the top eight with a 4-5 win-loss record ahead of a trip to Ballarat to face the Western Bulldogs next Saturday.

Dew described his team's performance as mature, backing up from their triumph over Sydney at the SCG eight days earlier.

"We've been seeing signs, we got reward last week so it was important to go again this week," he said.

"The ladder is still settling.

"There's clearly a couple of standout teams up the front, but then there's a big glut of teams there and we certainly want to be in the mix.

"It's also the way we go about it that's important to us and the maturity to back up a win, which hasn't been our strength before, but I think we're built a little bit different this year.

"We've put the work in and we'll continue to have challenges, but I think we're going to see more of that than not."

Despite conceding so many inside 50 entries, the Suns strangled Fremantle's midfield, winning the clearance count by 16 and the contested possessions by 17.

The defensive unit of Sam Collins, Rory Thompson, Charlie Ballard, Wil Powell, Sean Lemmens and Connor Budarick were terrific, spoiling and cleaning up loose balls with aplomb.

"I think that the belief has been there," Dew said.

"I think we're trying to build a list and footy club that is even, so that if someone drops down a peg, someone else steps up.

"We certainly don’t' want to be one-dimensional and that's across the board, not just mids.

"The players ultimately have to buy into that. We can set the tone and standard, but I think it says a fair bit about our characters that buy into that."

Dew's counterpart Justin Longmuir made no excuses for his team's first loss since round two, saying the Suns outplayed them in all facets.

Longmuir said the biggest problem was simply "we couldn't score".

"It’s interesting, when the Suns lose, they cop it, and when they win, it’s the other team having a down day," he said.

"They played really well today, and from what I’ve seen on the tape during the week, they’ve been playing some really good footy.

"So, they deserve all the credit today.

"Their ability to get numbers back through work-rate, their ability at ground level to buffer pressure and thwart our attacks – we just didn’t look dangerous forward of the ball all day.

"We didn’t have composure to create opportunities, and they were really good – their ability to hunt ground ball and strip us and tackle and create opportunities themselves was much more dangerous."

Longmuir said the rainy conditions were no reason for his team's struggles.

"We’ve got to be better than that. It rains in Perth as well.

"We get multiple wet games a year. We’ve got to be better. We’ve been praising, internally in particular, our even contribution, and today they just had more contributors in the conditions."