A country club in the north west admits the next three weeks will shape their season after a lean start. Find out why.
Gisborne coach Brad Fox admits the next three weeks are make or break for the Bulldogs in their premiership defence in the Bendigo league.
The reigning premiers are just inside the top five after a tough start to the season with two wins in their first five matches.
The Bulldogs have lost to Strathfieldsaye, Eaglehawk and Kyneton, by two points just before the bye, to sit a couple of games away from the top.
Now the team has top four tests in the next three weeks with matches against Golden Square this Saturday, followed by Sandhurst and South Bendigo.
“I’ve been really pleased with the enthusiasm and the commitment we’ve had from our senior playing group,” Fox said.
“We haven’t had the results on the board in terms of wins and losses but with a two point loss and a 12 point loss we’re not too far away either.”
Fox said 11 of last year’s premiership side has been out, throughout the season, which has impacted the teams performances.
The bye, last week, did come at the right time.
“We’ve been working a lot on our forward line, which is inexperienced this year,” Fox said,
“Getting them to find the magic, find the jell so we get better quality shots on goal is part of what we’ve been working on in the past two weeks.
“On top of that we have missed easy shots in front of goal.
“That’s a function of experience and confidence.”
Fox said the ladder will ultimately decide if the team’s changes are good enough to win back-to-back titles as other teams looked to have improved so far this season.
But poor performances in the next three weeks could severely impact their chances of winning the premiership.
“The next three weeks give us an enormously good opportunity to show where we really sit,” Fox said.
“Winning three out of three is what we are setting ourselves for.
“To win two of three puts us probably on par with where we thought we might have been given where we were starting from.
“To win one out of three means we are battling uphill after that.”
Gisborne will welcome back premiership player Seb Bell-Bartels who has been missing since the start of the season after an injury during pre-season.
He is joined by Harry Thomas, Zac and Jed Denahy coming back in.
Jarrod Ainsworth, an under-18 player, will make his debut in seniors.
Golden Square currently has the third best attack in the competition with Gisborne fourth.
Fox believes he has enough firepower to stop their attack but concedes the battle will be in the midfield as to who wins.
“The battle in the midfield will be red hot,” he said.
“The challenge will be who can make the quality of entries as low as possible to give their defenders a better than 50/50 chance of winning the contest.
“They’ve got a strong forward line but we are bringing in an almost identical back six to our grand final team and we were the best defence in the competition last year.
“I certainly have full faith in our defence they will be rebounding the ball and giving us opportunities in the midfield.”
The game starts at 2.20pm.
Originally published as Gisborne set to face premiership tests in the next month