North Warrnambool Eagles advance to 2019 Hampden league grand final

He's done just that, lifting the Eagles from the bottom of the ladder to a grand final berth.

The Eagles, under the six-time Hampden league premiership coach's tutelage, are now just one win away from a fairytale finish.

Long-time Eagles leader Tom Batten was glowing in his praise for Dowie after the club marched into only its second-ever decider on Saturday.

"It's not just one thing, it's a whole range of things," Batten said after their 12.11 (83) to 7.7 (49) preliminary final win over Warrnambool at Friendly Societies' Park on Saturday.

"His preparation is second-to-none and everyone knows their roles, there's no grey areas.

"Off field, little things like when you say g'day calling them by their first name, I know he's big on that one, and just the culture around the club.

"It is a whole-club mentality, not just senior football. He really brings the whole community together."

North Warrnambool Eagles led Warrnambool from start-to-finish.

Former AFL midfielder Michael Barlow added height, strength and finesse to the Eagles' midfield and its skills cut through the Blues.

Defensively the Eagles suffocated the usually-potent Blues' attack.

Joe McKinnon kept Darren Ewing to one goal as Batten, Darcy Keast and co restricted Warrnambool to just seven goals.

"We've put a lot of work into it and we were disappointed last week (against Koroit) as a back six but I thought this week we really held up," Batten said.

"It was a really good effort but it starts up the field - the forwards, the mids - everyone did their role."

The performance lifted the Bushfield-based club, which joined the Hampden league in 1997, to its second grand final since 2016.

Dowie, who was proud of his players' mental toughness, said it was a victory for its hard-working supporters.

"There are so many volunteers and people who support your footy club with stuff that goes on behind-the-scenes and I think when you're young you don't realise that," he said.

"I think for them it's just reward, just to see so many happy faces (is great).

"The boys have been there before and if you keep knocking on the door and sooner or later it's going to open."

Dowie will coach against his former club Koroit - the team he took to a hat-trick of flags (2014, '15 and '16) - in the grand final.

The mind games have already started.

"Koroit will go in red-hot favourites next week and I just said to our guys 'I love being in that position where we go in as the underdogs'," he said.

"We've been training on Albert Park for the last month, so it's hard and it's certainly a lot harder than Mortlake (where the second semi-final was played) and our guys will be ready to go."

A philosophical Warrnambool coach Matt O'Brien lamented the gap between his Blues and the top-two.

He said the defeat was a disappointing way to finish but the club would now seek ways to elevate itself in 2020.

"This game won't (weigh on us long-term) but the big picture stuff will," O'Brien said.

"They've beaten us three times, twice easily, and Koroit beat us easily two weeks ago as well so there is something there we need to improve on.

"We'll have to do some thinking if we're to go another step further. But you don't start from here (in a preliminary final), you start from zero.

"We have to work just to get here again and then go the next step.

"What we've done has been really successful against some other sides who are not at this level but when we get to this level, it's not good enough.

"Structurally we'll need to change. Our fitness is OK, our disposal was poor today under pressure so that is something we can work on."

O'Brien said Warrnambool was "too predictable" with its forward entries and wasted the ball by foot.

"We didn't change the angles enough but again that's a credit to them in that they dropped players back and also didn't allow us to chip around the arc," he said.

"They were picking us off midfield as well so we weren't able to run the ball in quickly.

"We're really disappointed, not in the effort or intensity, probably the execution killed us today.

"We turned the ball over a lot, fumbled a bit early and dropped some marks we would normally take.

"I'd hate to think how many times they marked it uncontested off our boot."

The Eagles have one major injury concern - midfielder Sam James (shoulder) ran the water against Warrnambool and will have to prove his fitness.

Blues midfielder Jye Turland was carried from the field with a corkie.

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