On Saturday, they answered those critics with a resounding victory over Kolora-Noorat.

The Warriors will take plenty of positives out of their entertaining 15.14 (104) to 11.10 (76) Warrnambool and District league grand final rematch win over the Power at Davidson Oval.

Old Collegians playing coach Josh Reichman said the Warriors needed to think positively to respond to the internal criticism they put on themselves.

“We set ourselves a bit of expectation and we are our harshest critics,” he said. 

“We are pretty hard on ourselves and the key for us was to stay positive and I think we did that.

“We concentrated on what we are winning at around the game and try to bounce off that and sometimes we get ourselves into a head space that we don't need to be in.

“We worked on being positive and we saw the results today by getting a four-quarter effort and it took us until the last five minutes to break the game open and because we stayed positive we have come away with a good win.”

Alex Wallis was damaging up forward for the Warriors, while Sam Dwyer and Matthew Lynch, who was named best on ground, worked tirelessly throughout the midfield to ensure Old Collegians kept driving the ball forward. Reichman praised the trio and Justin Lynch post match for contributing to the Warriors’ run-away 28-point victory.

“Alex presented massively for us up forward and didn't stop moving for us and it was a big positive,” he said. “Justin Lynch was huge off the half back, he ran and created and then Matt and Sam really got on top in the middle.”

Ben Fraser was a workhorse up forward in his return to the Power side, kicking five goals, while Jason Moloney fought hard in the tense midfield battle to finish in Kolora-Noorat’s best. 

Both sides experienced injury woes with Power defender Luke Tebble injuring his hamstring in the first quarter and Warriors ruckman Scott Lenehan leaving the ground early in the fourth quarter with concussion.

Kolora-Noorat mentor Danny Finn said his side would learn a lot from Saturday’s game which saw momentum shift constantly throughout the encounter.

“They were really efficient and they worked a bit harder than us and we will get a lot out of it in terms of our own youngsters learning from what they did really well,” he said post match.