Like every other team in the competition, we're ready for round one and happy with our preparation for the season ahead.

Unfortunately, a few guys will be missing for the opening round. Campbell Brown and Shane Crawford are out due to suspension, while our skipper Richie Vandenberg will miss with a hamstring problem and Joel Smith has a knee injury.

Despite this, we're still pleased with the side that will run out on the park against the Brisbane Lions.

A lot of people have already written off the Lions, because they’ve lost an enormous amount of experience since last year, with Michael Voss, Jason Akermanis, Mal Michael, Justin Leppitsch, Clark Keating and Brad Scott no longer at the club.

The Lions are in a rebuilding stage, but they've also got a lot of quality players like Simon Black, Jonathan Brown and Luke Power, while the likes of Michael Rischitelli and Cheynee Stiller are promising kids.

On their home turf, we'll have to play our best football to get over the line, but we're looking forward to the challenge.

We're hoping for a lot of improvement this year. That will be determined by our core players who have played a fair amount of football. Guys in that category are Trent Croad, Brown, Brad Sewell, Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Robbie Campbell.

We're also looking for continued development from Lance Franklin, Jordan Lewis and Jarryd Roughead to help take us forward.

We're putting a lot of faith in our core/five-year players to stand up and take the responsibility from the young players, so they can continue to develop at their own pace.

At this stage, the likes of Brent Renouf, Xavier Ellis and Beau Muston will be knocking on the door to make their AFL debut against the Lions.

We'll fly up on Friday afternoon and then have a light runaround at the Gabba, before playing on Saturday night.