The Saints raced to an 11-goal lead over the Blues in the top-five clash at Reid Oval before the hosts clawed their way in front in the third term.

Koroit coach Stacey O'Sullivan said Foster came on for the ill Emily-Rose Finnigan. Finnigan is also unavailable to play the Tigers at Hanlon Park next week and Dobson wanted a bit of a run this week to prepare.

"It was nice to have her back in, she just steadied the ship at times," O'Sullivan said.

The non-playing coach said the Saints, who named young defender Zahli Adams as their best, made the most of a slow-starting Blues.

"I don't know if we had a flyer or they had a shocker. They weren't playing their normal game," she said.

"We shot well and in the second and third quarters they shot beautifully and we didn't shoot well.

"The girls dug deep and came back and drew it so we were pretty happy with that.

"They were tough conditions, it wasn't wet obviously but the wind, I think they were 35km/h winds and they're hard to play and score in."

Warrnambool coach Raewyn Poumako said the Blues needed to rectify their slow starts before playing North Warrnambool Eagles next week.

She said the 11-goal quarter-time deficit was "massive" but praised the Blues' ability to thrive on pressure.

"It seems the second quarter we go out and we're ready to go so we've got to do something different about our starts and our warm-up," Poumako said.

"I think we've been doing the same warm-up now for a while and we need to change that up and put a bit more intensity into it and individually each player needs to be out there ready to start."

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