THEIR season officially started last week, but the Brisbane Lions are eyeing off Sunday's NAB Challenge match against Gold Coast as the unofficial beginning to 2014.

The Lions will welcome at least 10 senior players back after last Thursday's 131-point loss against Hawthorn when they travel to Townsville to take on the Suns.

Captain Jed Adcock, vice-captain Tom Rockliff, along with Matthew Leuenberger, Pearce Hanley, Daniel Rich, Joel Patfull, Daniel Merrett, Brent Moloney, Jack Redden and Luke McGuane will be among the inclusions.

Rockliff said although an inexperienced team learnt plenty of lessons against the reigning premier last week, it was time to implement new coach Justin Leppitsch's game-plan with a near full squad.

"Justin mentioned to the guys this will be a near round one team this weekend," Rockliff said after a skills session in the sweltering Brisbane heat on Tuesday morning.

"I don't think the outcome is all that important during the pre-season. You want to have a few wins, we won the pre-season competition last year and came out in round one and got belted."

Jonathan Brown (foot) is still unavailable and is expected to re-join the main group on Thursday, while Ash McGrath (calf) and Brent Staker (calf) also have slight niggles.

After winning its first NAB Challenge match against Essendon by one point on Monday night, Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna said he would rest some key personnel from the match against the Lions.

Gary Ablett, Michael Rischitelli, Jaeger O'Meara and David Swallow would be among those rested from the trip to North Queensland, McKenna said.

Rockliff said those outs made little difference to the Lions' focus.

"It's similar to what we did last week," he said.

"It's still a fair way until round one. They don't want to travel too much and being an interstate team you end up travelling 10, 11 times a year, and you want to go into round one fresh … so we thought they might rest a few.

"There's a chance we might be a bit rusty, and it'll be humid up there and a bit slippery but we've got to get out there and play the best footy we can with the team we field."

Lions triple premiership coach and current board member Leigh Matthews was an interested onlooker as the Lions sweated it out at Coorparoo on Tuesday morning.