North Warrnambool Eagles extend winning streak into another week

Adam Dowie's Eagles have beaten five-time reigning premier Koroit (22 points) and a resurgent Warrnambool (32 points) in two finals-like challenges.

Saturday's 12.5 (77) to 8.9 (57) win over the Saints proved North's armour is starting to stand up against powerhouse outfits.

"I thought we answered a few questions last week on a big ground (at Reid Oval against the Blues) with our fitness (level) hanging over our head," Dowie said.

"But I thought Koroit was that next level up and if you have got a kink in your armour they'll expose it and I don't think they were able to do that.

"Personnel wise, we ran out the game pretty well and I thought our defenders were really good and our midfielders - stoppage, clearance and spread wise - never looked like Koroit would break us."

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Dowie said the second win of the season over the defending champions proved to his side that the "way we have taught them how to play works" but admitted there was room for improvement.

The first-year Eagle said his side was handling winning more after finishing last season with its lowest wins tally (five) since 2011.

Koroit coach Chris McLaren praised the way the Eagles halted his side from playing its natural game on its home deck, adding it needed to find a way to negate teams shutting down its style.

"We would need to make some slight changes with some stuff we did," he said.

"It was one of those games where if you did everything that you train and practice for and you do it really well and it didn't work then you'd be more concerned.

"There was stuff today that we normally don't do and other things we did, we didn't do very well which we normally do better.

"Some of it is us and a fair bit of it was how they were able to move the footy and defend the ball and ground."

McLaren believed the game was won between the arcs with defence proving to be top dog at Victoria Park.

"Both ends of the ground - be it their forwards, our backs or our forwards, their backs - was reasonably even with their backs slightly on top of our forwards," he said.

"Sam (Dobson) copped a big corkie early and Jarrod (Korewha) copped one in the head after half-time and that probably slowed those two boys up a little bit but their defenders just got the points.

"I think our defenders just got the points but through the middle of the ground they were much better. Are they beatable? Absolutely. Do we need to play better to beat them? Absolutely."

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