Jones senses upset in VFL clash with Footscray

The Gold hasn’t tasted success since forging its own identity for the start of the 2013 VFL season, but the feeling around the club is they are about to break the drought.

Friday night’s home clash with the Footscray Bulldogs shapes as good a chance as any for the Gold.

“We feel as though we are right in the hunt tomorrow night, no doubt about it,’’ Gold coach Aussie Jones said.

“We think we’re building towards a win and we feel as though we learnt a lot from the loss to Essendon last week.

“The training session we had on Wednesday night was judged by a couple of the senior players as the best we’ve had all season.

“It’s going to be a hard task against Footscray, but we feel as though we are right up to the challenge.”

Footscray won its opening game of the season against Richmond, but has suffered two-straight losses to Williamstown and Northern Blues in the past two weeks.

Their squad includes a host of AFL-experienced players – Tom Williams, Mitch Wallis, Brett Goodes, Ayce Cordy, Jordan Russell, Tom Campbell, Brent Prismall, Nick Lower and Lukas Marcovic.

Former Kyneton key forward Jack Redpath enjoyed arguably his best game at VFL level last week for the Bulldogs.

“Tom Campbell and Ayce Cordy are quality bigs and Mitch Honeychurch is a high draftee who is coming off a really big game last week,’’ Jones said.

“We need to put a lot of time into their VFL-listed players. Prismall, Russell and Lower are in their midfield and they’re immediately off AFL lists.

“The result will genuinely come down to which midfield gets on top.”

Jackson Clark, recruited from Darwin, and the Eaglehawk-aligned Jesse Collins will play their first games for the Gold.

Jarrod Bacon is out of the side because of a broken collarbone, while Tyson Biffin has been dropped.

Friday night’s game at the QEO starts at 6.30pm.