The Gold will clash with country rivals North Ballarat at Swan Hill's Allen Garden Reserve in round eight of the VFL.

In their past three losses to Collingwood, Port Melbourne and Footscray, the Gold have trailed by 47, 23 and 51 points at quarter-time, during which they have been outscored 137 points to just 16.

"As a coach, I'm going to do something a little different pre-game, without going too far away from our usual stuff," Jones said on Friday.

"It can get fairly quiet in our rooms before a game, so we're going to try to create a bit more atmosphere and energy around the playing group by playing some vision that will hopefully, create a positive environment before the first bounce."

The Gold are 0-6 and on the bottom of the ladder heading into the clash with the Roosters, who have won two matches and are 13th on the ladder.

The Roosters are coached by Gerard Fitzgerald, who last week set a new record for the most games coached in the VFL with 314.

"They have one of the best coaches in the VFL in Fitzy, who always has a very competitive side," Jones said.

"We'll expect nothing different from them this week in that while it may not be the strongest side North Ballarat has put out with a couple of injuries, Fitzy is similar to Ross Lyon in that the 23 he puts out there always plays to a reasonably consistent standard."

The Gold welcome back captain Steven Stroobants - originally from Swan Hill -  from an elbow injury and Jack Sheahan, who was a late withdrawal last week through illness.

"We just need get back to the sort of desire we had for the contest earlier in the season," Jones said.

"We've certainly gone away from that and we can't afford after six games of footy to be dropping our standards.

"There has been a fair bit of work done to get our focus back and we don't feel we could have done any more as a coaching group to get the players prepared."

Sunday's game at Swan Hill's Allen Garden Reserve starts at 1.30pm.