Phil Walsh believes AFL coaches have a responsibility to “protect the game” with mouth-watering match-ups such as the contest between Patrick Dangerfield and Nat Fyfe on Saturday night.

Two of the stars of the competition, Dangerfield and Fyfe went head-to-head in Crows' Indigenous Round clash with Fremantle at Adelaide Oval, much to the delight of spectators.

Raging Brownlow Medal favourite Fyfe won the possession count, amassing a career-high 40 possessions to go with 14 clearances, 10 inside 50ms and a goal.

In his best performance of the season, Dangerfield wasn’t far behind. The two-time All Australian collected 38 possessions, including an equal-AFL record 29 contested, as well as nine clearances, eight tackles, six inside 50ms and a goal.

Fyfe, whose Dockers emerged victorious by 11 points in the enthralling tussle, will probably claim the three Brownlow votes, but it was hard to split the influential pair.

Walsh and Freo coach Ross Lyon allowed the match-up to persist for the whole game.

Walsh, who revealed he had a “Plan B” in place for Fyfe if required, described the contest as a throwback to footy of yesteryear.

“You might call me old fashioned, but that’s how I like footy,” he said after the game.

“When I went to the footy as a young guy from Hamilton, and it wasn’t that often we’d go down (to the city), but we’d watch great player versus great player and that’s what we saw tonight.

“Maybe, I’m a weirdo! I want to win … I know we’ve got to win enough games to get into finals and that’s paramount, but I also think we have to protect the game.

“One thing that fans love is those great battles. Tonight was a great example of that. I think everyone walking away would’ve talked about Fyfe v Dangerfield.”

Dangerfield was clearly Adelaide’s best player in the narrow loss to Fremantle.

The undermanned Crows fought bravely against the unbeaten Dockers, but Walsh said his team, ultimately, didn’t have enough contributors to cause an upset.

“I gave them (the players) a number before the game of how many players we needed to play well and play their role for us to win,” he said.

“I asked them at the end of the game (who thought they’d played their role?) and we didn’t get that number. It’s as simple as that.

“If you want to beat really strong teams and really hardened teams, you need weight of numbers. We didn’t have that tonight.”