The Dragons and Students will take to Avery’s Paddock for a 50-over one-day match as part of Victorian Premier Cricket’s annual country round.

The clash is one of nine going ahead across country Victoria as the best club cricketers head to all corners of the state.

Regional centres Wangaratta, Bendigo and Ballarat are staging matches, as is the farming hamlet of Warrion, 20 kilometres north of Colac.

Northcote enters the clash winless from four matches this season, although it has been competitive against St Kilda and Footscray-Edgewater.

Coach David Reid said there were positives for his young side beneath the results. But he was well aware of the need to break the season duck.

“The results haven’t gone our way but we know that happens in this game, things don’t always go to plan,” he said.

“We’re pretty mindful that we’ve got a pretty young group. We’ve played well in a couple of games and a couple of others we’ve let ourselves down.

“We lost to the defending champs (Footscray-Edgewater) in the last over on Saturday and the week before we lost in the dying moments to St Kilda.

“We’re putting in pretty good performances but we were disappointing in our other two games.

“We’re not happy with our start by any stretch of the imagination but we’re pretty confident if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll turn it around.”

Buoying Reid’s hopes is the return of Victorian Bushrangers pair Marcus Stoinis and Matt Short. The all-rounders are free of domestic duties.

Stoinis made three half-centuries at one-day domestic level last month and crafted four centuries for the Dragons in VPC last season.

Short, a Ballarat boy, is a Bushrangers rookie who opened the batting for Australia at the ICC Under 19 World Cup this year.

Melbourne University will regain its own Bushranger in Pakistan-born leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed.

“As well as being cracking fellas and big parts of our group, (Stoinis and Short) bring a lot of energy,” Reid said.

“Guys are pretty excited just to get them back because we haven’t seen a whole lot of them this season.

“In one-day cricket they’re hugely valuable because they both bat in the top three and we look to bowl them for 10 overs each.”

Reid said the Dragons were keen to play in Port Fairy — “it’s a weekend everyone looks forward to”.

“To actually get away for a weekend is very rare. I think they enjoy the fact they get to go away,” he said.