The second meeting between the two teams this season, the Bushies had their colours lowered in the round one fixture against the Power, falling by 49 points.
But since then, Mark Brown’s men have not put a foot wrong, reeling off four consecutive wins leading into the first extended break of the year.
Gearing up for a genuine eight-point game, Murray Bushrangers regional talent operation lead Mick Wilson praised the way the boys had handled themselves over the bye period.
“We have still been training and the boys have been playing local footy and Victoria Country, so there has been quite a bit still going on,” Wilson said.
“The boys have been really good over the last month, a lot of them have gone back and slotted straight into senior footy which has been really good to see.
“We are really mindful of ensuring all the boys are committed to local footy, and I think our players got a lot of valuable experience over the past month which they can hopefully bring to the NAB League.”
While spirits are high among the group, Wilson said the squad was well aware of the challenge the ladder-leading Power would present as they look to exact revenge for the round one defeat.
“It gives another chance to have a crack against them as we were very disappointed with the way we played in round one,” he said.
“Obviously Gippsland are very strong and have won all of their games, but we think we should be much more competitive this time around.
“We go in very confident that we have what it takes to make it a very tightly-contested game.”
The start of a crucial block of mid-season games, Wilson said a win on the weekend would give the boys confidence that they were a genuine premiership contender.
“A win this week would be enormous, we’ve got a pretty hard run after that because we will have a lot of our representative players out playing for both Victoria Country and Allies,” he said.
“So if we can come away with a win on Sunday that will instil a lot belief in our team moving forward.”
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