The Bulldogs forced the highly-fancied Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong to work hard for two-and-a-half quarters in their AFL Riverina Championship season opener last week, before the Lions got on top late in a 52-point win.

Co-coach Josh Ashcroft is bullish about his side's hopes of pulling off an upset against a Crows side who held out Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes by 15 points last week.

"We'll go over there pretty confident with the list we've got. Hopefully we can turn a few heads this weekend, and be in with a good show," Ashcroft said.

"We've based our game plan around pressure, that high intensity and running in numbers from the backline, and getting it into our forwards nice and quickly.

"The pressure was definitely there and the endeavour. There's a few fundamentals we can tweak after that first game, but overall we're pretty happy.

"It is hard to play that style of footy for four quarters, but we've got some young, quick guys and they can do it, these blokes are ready to go.

"I don't think it's so much the fitness side of thing, it's a mental thing and switching off. You can't have lapses otherwise the opposition will take the game away from you."

Ashcroft took over the coaching alongside Chase Grintell after incumbents Mark Carroll and Jeremy Sykes opted to step down for this season.

"We're up for the challenge, it's been good in the short stint I've done so far," he said.

"It's good to rely on Chase to help me as much as possible. The two of us can bounce ideas off each other.

"It was important (to play this year) from my point of view. Everyone has their own opinions on the overall picture, but with the junior group we've got it's good to keep the footy going and keep them happy while we can.

"Hopefully in this short season we can get a bit out of it, and build into next year."

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