TWO weeks after lamenting what he labelled his side's worst performance during his time at the club, North Bendigo coach Matt Dillon was lauding his premiership team on Saturday.

Having been comprehensively outplayed by Colbinabbin in the HDFNL second semi-final a fortnight earlier, the Bulldogs response couldn't have been more impressive.

A 90-point preliminary final bounce-back over Mount Pleasant last week followed by a 36-point grand final win over the Grasshoppers on Saturday that was set up by a five-goal to none second quarter at Huntly.

"Over these past two weeks our biggest focus has been on game control and being better when the pressure was on," Dillon said after the Bulldogs' 10.10 (70) to 4.10 (34) win.

"We just wanted to relax, use our shorter option kicking more and I think that suited us as the game wore on today.

"We were able to use our foot skills today, hit-up at the footy and when space opened up we had guys in the right areas to use their pace and I thought we got the mix right today."

The Bulldogs opted to go with a loaded forward line. As well as bringing Darcy Richards back from a broken fibula, North Bendigo also started Jordan Ford - who won the best-on-ground medal for the second year in a row - inside attacking 50.

Ford's forward role left Shane Harris the job on Colbinabbin's Daniel Connors and it was a match-up won by the Bulldogs' defender.

"Shane's job on Connors today was massive... Connors is a former AFL footballer who is very clever. There was a lot of one-on-one ball that went in their forward 50 and Shane stopped a lot of that," Dillon said.

"And I thought the job Brodie Thomson did on Matt Riordan after he got hold of us a couple of weeks ago was really important as well."

Saturday's win gave the Bulldogs a third flag from six grand finals in a row and caps a 17-2 season after they had earlier finished two games clear on top of the ladder.

"You don't get flags handed to you, but I felt our group really deserved it today with the footy they've played this year," Dillon said.

"We were confident that if we played four quarters of grinding footy and won the contested ball that we'd be right in it.

"There's certainly plenty of satisfaction and relief with the result for the club."

COLBINABBIN remains without a senior premiership since 2008 after it was outplayed by North Bendigo in Saturday's Heathcote District league grand final at Huntly.

Having kicked 20 and 16 goals in their first two finals wins over Lockington-Bamawm United and North Bendigo, the Grasshoppers could muster just four on Saturday as they were soundly beaten 10.10 (70) to 4.10 (34) by the Bulldogs.

"Right from the first quarter it just felt like we couldn't get anything going," coach Julian Bull said.

"We couldn't get the game on our terms... our contested ball and our stoppage work was just second-rate today and North lifted big time from when we played them a couple of weeks ago.

"Credit to Dills (North Bendigo coach Matt Dillon) and their boys because they really targeted the areas they need to and lifted and, unfortunately, we dropped off."

After trailing by one point at quarter-time the Grasshoppers were left chasing tail for the rest of the match after the Bulldogs kicked five unanswered goals in the game-breaking second term.

"We were flat today and you can't afford to have bad patches in grand finals," Bull said.

"We were able to pepper the goals at times in the third and last quarters, but we couldn't hit the scoreboard and it just wasn't our day today, so full credit to North Bendigo."

Given the Grasshoppers kicked a score of just 34 - the lowest in a HDFNL grand final since 2004 - the Bulldogs already had what would prove to be a match-winning tally by the 12-minute mark of the second term when they had 5.5 on the board.

To further compound a disappointing day for the Grasshoppers, they were also beaten in the A grade netball game 48-38 by White Hills.

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