MELBOURNE midfielder Jordie McKenzie played perhaps his finest game in red and blue on Sunday, revelling in a daunting assignment matched up against Fremantle star Matthew Pavlich.

McKenzie, playing just his 27th match for the Demons, highlighted his growing stature in the Melbourne midfield with a standout stopping performance.

As well as racking up 28 possessions, the young redhead played a huge role in negating the Fremantle skipper around the midfield stoppages.

Defenders Joel Macdonald and Colin Garland were left to combat Pavlich when he drifted forward.

While the Freo captain had a reasonable day, his 17 disposals and one goal was below his usual output, and McKenzie said it was a great learning experience trying to quell Pavlich's influence.

"I went with 'Pav' when he was in the midfield - when he went forward Joel Macdonald and Colin Garland had a go at him, so it was a bit of a team effort," he said.

"But it was a great opportunity to go up against him, he's obviously an elite player.

"I watched a lot of video of him, went through it with 'Westy' (Melbourne assistant coach Scott West) ... he (Pavlich) is obviously a bigger body so I had to be fairly smart with my positioning. It was a lot to learn."

As well as negating Pavlich, McKenzie, often an inside workhorse, displayed a more expansive outside game in the win against Freo.

Only two of his 28 touches were kicks, with the hard nut collecting 13 handball receives . Unusually for him, McKenzie only managed three tackles.

"I was probably a bit handball happy, that's something I'll probably look at but I do normally handball more than I kick, that's my role in the midfield," he said.

Melbourne coach Dean Bailey said McKenzie's wholehearted contribution was exactly what the Demons had come to expect.

"Jordie was what we expected, we've got really high expectations of Jordie, he works really hard and is a terrific young man," he said.

"He was handball happy, Jordie ... but the thing about Jordie's effort is his ability to compete around the stoppages is really high, he's super competitive."