VIC METRO coach David Dickson says managing his squad and resting some key players will give his side the best opportunity of winning this year's NAB AFL Under-18 Championships.

Last year, powerful Western Australia, with Rhys Palmer, Cale Morton and the much talked about Nick Naitanui, eclipsed Metro to win its first division one title since 1999.

But the eight-time title winning coach is optimistic his team will bounce back this year, starting with Saturday's clash against NSW/ACT at Casey Fields.

"We started with a squad of 30 players and we're still trying to rotate our players and we'll be playing a few of our younger players against NSW/ACT on the weekend – we're not taking the game lightly, it's a very important game for us – but we've got to make sure everyone gets a chance," Dickson told afl.com.au.

"Some of our players are very hard at the ball, so to play on Saturday and come up again on Wednesday, it's a concern to us, so we might a couple of our midfielders to make sure they're 100 percent against Western Australia.

"It's a matter of rotating the players and understanding what their bodies can take; you look at Luke Shuey and he's very hard and physical at the contest and he reminds me so much of Luke Ball, that it's very hard for him to come up from Saturday to Wednesday."

Dickson said this year's extended championship format had been a great improvement.

"I think the format has been better, because it gives the players a chance to recuperate over two weeks, whereas previously we played three games in a week and it's very hard to come up," Dickson said.

"We've done very well, because we could do a lot of rehab and we had our team here [in Melbourne] and we could go to the beach, so it was good from that point-of-view, but this program is better, because it gives our players a chance to go interstate.

"We've been criticised a bit that we haven't travelled interstate much and we've got to learn to do that and this year we've played in Tassie and won well – 12 goals to one – and we played in South Australia and won by nine goals, so they've been able to adapt to that.

"They've accepted going away travelling and playing and flying back, but that's part of the experience if they want to be AFL players, so I think that's been excellent."