Sydney hard nut Zak Jones knows where the line is, but he won’t be changing his fierce ways

ZAK Jones found himself in hot water a couple of times this season but the Swans young gun is adamant he won’t be changing his attack on the game.

ZAK Jones managed to get himself into a blue before he’d even had his first kick.

It was Round 14, 2014 and when Sydney met Richmond at the MCG, Jones needed a new jumper merely minutes after being presented with his first one in the changerooms.

A record? Maybe.

“Yeah, I think that is true, actually,” Jones smiled this week.

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“I’m not proud of it.”

Jones, 22, is treading a tightrope this finals series.

Having garnered the attention of the match review panel on numerous occasions this season, if the defensive midfielder attracts one more fine for a classifiable offence, he’ll be rubbed out.

He plays on the edge — and is the first to admit it.

Zak Jones found himself in a scuffle and ripped his jumper in his first game in 2014.

He’s always been this way, and won’t be changing.

“It’s always been a part of me,” Jones says.

“Probably growing up with two older brothers, the beat-down probably made me that way.

“It’d have to be a kind of white line fever, because off the field I wouldn’t say that I’m like that at all.

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“But you need to play aggressively and you need to be fierce and that’s what the competition is about.

“It’s a ruthless competition and you see the teams that are playing aggressive and ruthless and they’re really good teams.”

One incident that saw him fall foul of the panel earlier this year was when he was charged with striking Tiger Dan Butler in Round 13, and suspended for a week.

The action followed a $1000 fine in Round 2 for rough conduct on Bulldog Travis Cloke, and a $1500 fine in Round 10 when Jones struck Hawk Luke Breust in the upper chest as the pair made their way up from a pack, just weeks after the league announced its crackdown on punching.

Zak Jones wrestles with Demon Tom Bugg. Picture: Michael Klein

After the Butler ban, Jones — then not yet a 50-game player — fronted the Swans to apologise.

“I said that it wasn’t good enough, and that we don’t accept that,” he explains.

“I think it’s important that you recognise when you make a mistake, and you own up to it.

“They’re my peers. I work with them every day. Their response was super.”

It was then that he recognised the line — he didn’t need anyone to tell him. He didn’t want to miss games. He hated it.

The fierce attack on the contest is something Jones has possessed since he was a junior growing up on the Mornington Peninsula.

Getting under the skin of his opponents, according to his brother and Melbourne captain Nathan early in the Swan’s career, had always been a strength.

“I see it as a positive, for sure,” the Swan says.

Zak Jones has become a vital part of the Swans’ set up this season. Picture: Michael Klein

“There’s obviously a line, and you don’t want to cross it, but when you’re sitting just below the line, that’s when you’re in a pretty good headspace of playing alert and playing aggressive and it can help you in games.”

When Jones re-signed with Sydney for another two seasons last month, Swans football boss Tom Harley said that Jones is finding the balance in his approach.

“As a youngish player you’re constantly learning the game. It constantly challenges you,” Harley said last month.

“He understands there is a line and he’s got to play physical, but there is a line. We obviously don’t want our players rubbed out and Zak is acutely aware of that.”

Nathan hasn’t just observed his younger brother’s attributes from the sidelines, Zak says, admitting the eldest Jones sibling’s guidance has been a “huge” factor.

Some of it was “brutal and honest”.

But it’s been good for him, the Swan admits.

“He said ‘if you want to play, you’re going to have to put in the hard work for it’,” he says.

“And I was like ‘whatever, I know what I’m doing’. Then I realised that it’s true.

“I thought I knew what I was doing, but I thought I’d do it my way and that my way was the right way.”

Zak Jones re-signed with Sydney this year until at least the end of 2019. Picture: Phil Hillyard

Pre-seasons were one example.

“It wasn’t necessarily my football going in the wrong direction, it was more that I hadn’t put the time into get better in my skills and my craft,” he says.

“(Nathan) said ‘if you want to be better, you’ve got to put the time in with working on your skills and working on your running’ and things like that.

“I’d just rock up to (TAC Cup outfit Dandenong) Stingrays pre-season and be like ‘alright, let’s get into it’, and wouldn’t be as fit as what other people around me were.”

Without it, Jones isn’t sure he’d have found himself where he is today.

This year’s pre-season was his first full preparation, and he has noticed the long-term positive effects.

The disappointment of falling 22 points short of the Western Bulldogs still burns, but Sydney’s subsequent campaign remains alive should it defeat Geelong at the MCG.

And it’s a new story being written.

“We haven’t really spoken about it since addressing it after the Grand Final,” Jones says.

“You can’t change it now. You use it for motivation but each game is different and it changes every year.

“This year, it’s completely different.”