THE BRISBANE Lions have addressed the issue of retaining their younger players, and will welcome with open arms six new draftees when they commence training on Wednesday.
The club lost five players under the age of 21 in the recent trade period, all of whom cited homesickness as a contributing factor for wanting out.
But after 15 days away in chilly Arizona for an altitude camp, the Lions have returned to Brisbane with a hunger to keep their new cubs on-board.
James Aish, Darcy Gardiner, Daniel McStay, Lewis Taylor, Tom Cutler and Nick Robertson will all join the team on Wednesday, and captain Jed Adcock said the issue of team loyalty had been spoken about in Arizona.
"Obviously players leaving, we have to address something there," Adcock said.
"It's probably easier when we can talk to welfare and those departments, assistant coaches - it's probably more the leadership group (issue).
"I think if you ask those (traded) players, they all left for different reasons. We don't know the exact reasons … we can just address what we've heard and areas we think we can do better and we'll do that in the next week or two."
The club will hold functions later in the week to welcome the new players, who will all live with their teammates upon arrival.
Just 48 hours after returning from America, the Lions were put through a tough two-hour training session in the Brisbane heat on Monday morning.
Adcock said after a tumultuous off-season that included the hiring of Justin Leppitsch as coach and a reformed board that now included Leigh Matthews, it was nice to be back training.
"A fair bit happened in the off-season but from a players' point of view, we didn't see a lot – most of it was played out in the media and didn't affect the players to a certain degree," he said.
"The players moved on and got on with what they could control and that was going over there (Arizona) and enjoying themselves."
Twitter: @AFL_mikewhiting