After falling a game short in the grand final of the 1983 Championship, where Ballarat capped off their own three-peat, Jones said the Goulburn Valley's "unfinished business" fuelled the fire heading into 1984.
“I think in ‘83 we beat Riddell League and Latrobe Valley, then Ovens and Murray,” Jones said.
“We were playing the Ballarat League at home at Deakin Reserve in the final of ‘83,” he said.
“It was a beautiful day on the Saturday, but we were playing them on the Sunday, and it absolutely bucketed down with about two or three inches of rain.
“And that just suited the way Ballarat played down to the ground. If you’ve ever been to Ballarat and played footy, you’d nearly die of the cold.
“And we never played in the mud in those days.
“So, the next year we were pretty determined to win it.”
Jones said the representative team came back the next year stronger through the inclusion of Mooroopna coach Chris Smith, as well as Jones’ own brother John, among others.
“We had a really good team, Chris Smith had come back from Fitzroy,” Jones said. "So we were probably a bit stronger in 84.
“I think at half time in the grand final we were about eight or nine goals up and were able to hang on.”
Jones, who lined up at centre half forward, said the country players aspired to play the best football they could at the time, with the Country Championship the highest honour.
But despite players coming together from all edges of the Goulburn Valley League, Jones said the bond between the playing group was particularly strong.
“I think there was 12 sides in the Goulburn Valley then and they used to call us the 13th side; we all got along pretty well together,” he said.
“Everyone at that time, players, officials, we played hard and partied hard in those days.
“Just catching up with the guys you would go toe-to-toe with, it was a lot of fun.”
One thing that stood out for Jones on the day — and a sign of that time — was going in after the game and finding cigarettes everywhere, with cigarette company Winfield the major sponsor for the event.
Overall though, Jones said it was a great time for the Goulburn Valley League, and believed the team could have made another run at it the following year.
He remembers that first game they played in 1985 was against Latrobe Valley, where the team's bus had broken down ahead of the match-up.
“We had to get changed on the bus and ended up getting beaten by a point,” Jones said.
That era of Goulburn Valley League football was one that Jones credits as a golden period for the league.
“It was a very good side, you had blokes like Tatura's David Code, who was an absolute superstar in the country,” he said.
“There was a lot of blokes from that era who are named in the best side of all time for the Goulburn Valley League.”
For the Jones brothers, and their Tongala teammate Mick Lovison, a Goulburn Valley League premiership victory with the Blues awaited later in 1984, the club's second in two years.
Jones said the Blues’ strength over those few years made the league as a whole a lot stronger.
“The Goulburn Valley is always strong when the little towns are strong, because it makes everyone else come up,” he said.
“The little sides only go once every seven to 10 years to have a go at it, and when they get stronger, and get some players from outside the Goulburn Valley into that side, it makes for a very strong competition.
“When Tongala won it, they won it when the Goulburn Valley was in two grand finals of the Country Championships, so it was a very strong era.”
MORE ON THE 1978 AND 1984 COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
'Fortunate that I was a part of it': Reid remembers triumph
Preston: Mateship at centre of 1984 Country Championships
John Jones: "Right place, right time" for 1984 Country Championship glory
Rochester ruckman a key to GVL ‘golden era'
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