SKIPPER Nathan Jones says training on Gosch’s Paddock will help the team adjust to playing on the SCG this Sunday.

Jones said Melbourne’s training venue was akin to playing on the Sydney Swans’ home ground.

“In terms of playing on the SCG and the size of the ground, I don’t think that’s going to faze us too much. It’s a little bit like training on Gosch’s Paddock,” he told Melbourne TV.

“Sydney, being such a super contested team, it’s going to be a real challenge for us – to try and match their intensity, particularly around the ball.

“I think it’s a challenge we’re really relishing and looking forward to.”

Despite making his AFL debut back in 2006, Jones has only played one match at the SCG – back in round eight, 2012 – and he is looking for a far better outcome this time around.

“I haven’t got great memories from playing there last time [after we lost by 101 points], but that was a long time ago. I’m pretty excited to get up there and as a group we’re excited to challenge ourselves against the best teams,” he said.

“We had a great hit out against Hawthorn a couple of weeks ago – and we didn’t win, which we were really disappointed about – but we played the brand of footy we wanted.

“We went into last Monday’s match and got the result we wanted against Collingwood and we moved on really quickly after that. We’ve got Sydney this weekend, which is one the best teams in the competition.”

With Melbourne aiming for its seventh win of the season, which would equal the number of victories it achieved last year, Jones said the players and coaches were focused on development and education.

“The inner sanctum of the footy club – or footy department – doesn’t really look really closely at the win/loss ratio,” he said.

“But I’ve seen the work we’ve done with our game and the huge growth. We’ve made significant improvement over the past 12 months and it’s a terrific opportunity to keep building on what we’ve done.

“We’ve been disappointing in some games and then in others we’ve been playing really well. The results that come from that – there has been speculation about finals – but really we’ll just keep working on the process and anything is possible.”