Injury-plagued teenager Mitch Clark has been earmarked as the player to provide much-needed support for key Brisbane Lions forward Jonathan Brown against Collingwood on Saturday night.

Clark, 19, will make his AFL season debut against the Pies at the Gabba after being one of five new faces added to the Lions' side by coach Leigh Matthews.

Lions' champion midfielder Simon Black, who will celebrate his 200th game against Collingwood, expected big things from Clark despite his shaky AFL career start.

The 2005 NAB AFL National Draft first-round selection played only six games last season due to osteitis pubis.

But his reserves form has been so impressive this year that Matthews has broken his own "rule of thumb" and fast-tracked the recovering Clark's comeback.

Matthews prefers players to have at least two full reserves games before being considered for the Lions.

Despite not playing a full game to date, Clark has forced Matthews' hand with scintillating reserves form, including a six-goal performance last weekend.

Clark has been added to the Lions team along with Wayde Mills, veteran Chris Johnson, Justin Sherman and Ben Fixter.

Black hoped Clark would provide welcome relief to Brown, who has been double and triple teamed in recent matches.

He also believed Johnson - back from a foot injury - would float into the forward line to provide another marking option.

Black said even matchwinner Brown could not make up for the loss of fellow key forward Daniel Bradshaw, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the pre-season.

Without any other Brisbane forward target to aim for, Brown was well held by Essendon in last round's 64-point loss.

"When you've got two quality goalkickers up forward I suppose sides are more reluctant to drop off and go two or three onto one," Black said.

"So we are missing him (Bradshaw), no doubt about that.

"But hopefully Mitch Clark can find his feet in the next week or two and get in and become the player we are hoping him to become.

"And Chris Johnson ... he's a presence up there, he draws the ball to him."

Matthews wielded the axe, cutting Marcus Allan - despite a career best 16 disposals against Essendon - as well as Colm Begley, Jason Roe, Jared Brennan and Scott Harding.

Cheynee Stiller (ankle) and Michael Rischitelli (knee) were picked despite nursing injuries.

Black said plenty of lessons had been learned from their second straight loss which kept former top-three side Brisbane (4-4 record) out of the top eight.

"Yeah, certainly through the middle there, I mean on the weekend we did really poorly, didn't execute that well at all," he said.

"It was obvious that Browny had two or three guys on him at times and we just didn't find other paths to goal, to the half-forward, full-forward line.

"We just bombed away and it wasn't smart.

"We need to be smarter than that because the opposition clubs are going to drop numbers back and we need to be better than that and we'll be working on that tonight at training."