BACK-to-back wins are expected to fuel Dennington's belief ahead of a showdown with Old Collegians.
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The Dogs, who broke through for their first Warrnambool and District league senior win since 2019 in round four, accounted for Allansford on Saturday.
Dennington coach Ben Thornton said the 11.16 (82) to 5.8 (38) result - which included conceding three unanswered goals in the first quarter - was a step forward.
"We were pumped with this one. We went in knowing Allansford would be a competitive team and the first two quarters we were inaccurate in front of goal but stayed right with them but then the third quarter, kicking into the breeze, we put the foot down a bit and got a bit of confidence," he said.
"We went back to how we want to play; we rushed the footy a lot in the first two quarters and set shots and coming into the 50 we blazed away.
"At half-time we spoke about that and said we wanted to control the footy and we did it really well and used our big targets up forward really well."
Thornton, who praised teenager defender Tom Lee, said the victory solidified the players' belief but he is wary of Old Collegians, which has a 1-4 win-loss record.
"They (the Warriors) had a win against Timboon so we'll go into that game, expecting a contest," he said.
"We've had two wins now but we can't get ahead of ourselves at all.
"We need to come in ready to play, like we did in the last half (against the Cats), we really need that mentality."
Allansford coach Tim Nowell labelled the performance "disappointing", saying the team was " a work in progress".
"We seem to be having some really good starts to the game and once we get challenged we drop our heads and go missing a little bit," he said.
"It's back to the drawing board this week and building belief in this group, because it's a young group, that when you're challenged you've got to find something inside you and step up to a whole new level.
"Dennington did that really well yesterday."
Nowell said the Cats were working on the "desire to want and hunt more" and as a coach he always tried to find positives.
"We challenged Dennington in the first quarter - we scored well and what they did differently to us, is they came out and attacked," he said.
"It is credit to Dennington, they played really good football, were smart about it and took the game on and when we were challenged we didn't do that."
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