Two goals in the space of four minutes sunk the Ballarat Red Devils in the mud, the Reds losing 1-2 on a churned up Trekardo Park.

The Red Devils dominated possession in the opening 15-minutes of the match. At the 16-minute mark, the home team let in two goals thanks to some poor defence.

Ballarat responded with a goal of its own when Charlie King scored unleashed a drive from 25 metres and a goal keeping error saw the ball fly into the top corner of the net.

That was to be the only other score of the match.

Coach Michael Leslie was critical of his team's performance, particularly in the first half.

"It's just not acceptable for a Ballarat team to play like that," Leslie lamented.

"Certainly we controlled the first 10 minutes of the match, but we gifted them two goals and you can't do that in a tough league."

King, playing as a makeshift centre-forward along with Sam Winch, proved a handful up front.

When Altona did score, it was Michael Esposito who collected a pass and finished from 10 metres. Four minutes later the visitors were two up when a clearance from Luke Armstrong smashed into Tristan Romein in the box and the rebound fell invitingly for Shane Di Gioachino to fire home.

Shellshocked, Ballarat managed to prevent Altona City from having another shot on goal for the rest of the match but most of the Ballarat players were looking for someone else to lift.

Much of the second half was the same as the first, with the Reds dominating play, but unable to put the ball into the net.

Josh Romein had two left foot shots that went wide in the space of three minutes early in the half and Dom Swinton made the City keeper work again with a great shot on the angle that was turned away for a corner.

Paul McClounan was then next to try his luck, followed by substitute Ryan Rykers, Winch and Swinton.

"We need to pick ourselves up and make sure we don't make the same mistakes and get the result we need in Geelong," Leslie said.

"It is a huge match for us. Geelong won't lay down ... it's a big derby match and they would love nothing better than beating us."