The Bulldogs fell 12 points short against minor premiers Nirranda on Saturday in the Warrnambool and District league to conclude the home-and-away season.

Bant told The Standard despite being disappointed with the result there was plenty to take out of it.

"It was a finals-like game even the crowd, you could tell, it was up a notch - there was a lot of buzz around the group," he said.

"In the past few weeks we've had some big wins and there's not been huge crowds or atmosphere so you much prefer to play in games (like Saturday).

"We spoke about it before the game and during the week, they're too good a team to have it all your own way all day, so we probably didn't want to be six goals to zero at the start and we were probably a bit fumbly.

"Good teams like Nirranda make you pay if you miss a kick or handball."

The Bulldogs mentor added it was important the group went to work on maintaining pressure across the ground ahead of the first final against Kolora-Noorat.

"I thought we lost our structure a bit early and got sucked into the footy and it was bouncing out too easy, so with no pressure on it puts our backs under the pump," he said.

"If your pressure is not there good teams will jump all over you and it felt like it was the case when things didn't go our way - it was a real front half game, when we were scoring it was centre clearance.

"Aside from the first quarter there wasn't too many goals scored from the backline, it was repeat entries that would score which shows how important midfield is."

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