Lined up against All Australian defender Ted Richards and Heath Grundy at different times, Tippett took some strong marks, showed plenty of ability at ground level and kicked three goals.
Suspended until round 12 due to his part in a salary cap breach with former club Adelaide, Tippett took advantage of a rare opportunity to play alongside his new teammates.
"It was good to see Kurt Tippett have a really good strong hitout and have five or six shots at goal against a quality defence," coach John Longmire said afterwards.
"He has to make the most of these opportunities because he hasn't got many games coming up.
"It's good to see him get his hands on the footy and have a number of shots at goal and look really sharp.
"He's a big target coming out of the goalsquare and for a bit there worked with Sam Reid and I thought the two of them looked pretty good."
A number of players impressed the coach in wet conditions, with Lewis Jetta and Andrejs Everitt singled out, plus rookie-listed midfielder Jake Lloyd.
Veterans such as Rhyce Shaw, Jude Bolton and Jarrad McVeigh also showed they are well on track for a good start to the new season.
There were some notable absentees, with Nick Smith, Marty Mattner, Adam Goodes, Alex Johnson, Mitch Morton and Shane Mumford all sitting out the game, which was played over three 20-minute periods.
Premiership-winning quartet Goodes (knee), Smith (knee), Mumford (ankle) and Mattner (hip) will miss next week's opening NAB Cup round, but are expected to feature later in the pre-season competition.
But most eyes were centred on Tippett, 25, with Longmire admitting the former Crow and fellow key forward Reid "at times might struggle a bit" as they adjust to playing together.
The coach also expects himself and Tippett to have some frustrating times over the coming months.
"It might be a bit awkward for the coach looking downstairs and there he is sitting in the crowd and we wouldn't mind wheeling him out," he said.
"But that's ok. We'll work through the frustrations that he'll no doubt feel at different times during the year not being able to play.
"We're confident that he'll be able to round his game off really well in that period and work on some things he needs to work on and hopefully get him in the best possible condition for the back half of the year."
Asked if the playing group was excited at the prospect of playing alongside Tippett, Longmire said yes, while cheekily suggesting the defending premiers had also done reasonably well without him.
"They are (excited), but they also know he's not going to be there for the first half of the season," he said.
"We were pretty competitive last year without him and we're confident that we'll be able to play really competitive football in the first half of this year without Kurt Tippett."
Tippett also attracted some attention from Greater Western Sydney coach Kevin Sheedy on Friday.
"Good to hear Tippett went well in intraclub match. Pity he won't play round one. (Jeremy) Cameron and (Jonathon) Patton will," Sheedy tweeted.
James Dampney is a reporter for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_JD
