BENDIGO Gold coach Aussie Jones will take an old-school one-on-one approach to his side’s VFL clash with Williamstown on Sunday.
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In these days of high rotations, rolling zones, guarding space, defending the ground and any other term you want to throw in that can make it tough to decipher just who is accountable for who on the field, Jones will strip the game back to its purest form on Sunday of simply setting the challenge for his players to beat their direct opponent.
“We’re going to stick to our style, but we’re going to break it down to one-on-one battles right across the ground and see if we can get as many winners as we can,” Jones said on Friday.
“It’s about giving the players some responsibility, and at the end of the day, we’ll know that if we have some winners who they have beaten, but if they have winners, we’ll know which of our boys won’t have stuck to the task the way we wanted.
“And that’s what we’re about. The reason we made the decision early not to renew our licence was to make sure we can expose our players to as many clubs as we can, and Sunday will be another opportunity to do that.”
Williamstown (9-4) is fifth on the ladder and has had a busy week, having crushed West Perth 10.11 (71) to 1.2 (8) in the Foxtel Cup grand final on Tuesday night, winning $100,000.
“Watching them on Tuesday night, they are an outstanding side,’’ Jones said.
“Their professionalism and depth in the list is very impressive.”
The Gold side will include Bendigo Pioneer-listed Fergus Payne as the 23rd player.
Sunday’s game at Williamstown’s Burbank Oval starts at 2pm.