THE CRITICS might believe it’s another year of developing the kids up at the Brisbane Lions, but Luke Power – one of the club’s four co-captains for 2008 – says there’s plenty to like about the youthful looking side being put together by master coach Leigh Matthews.

The Lions haven’t made a finals appearance since finishing runner up in 2004, but showed tremendous form late in 2007 to suggest they’re every chance of taking some big steps in 2008.

Power says the difference will come from the young players of previous years who’ve now had enough time in the seniors to step up and have a genuine impact.

“We had some great years, and then we’ve had some pretty lean years lately, but that’s the challenge to get ourselves up to where we’ve been in the past and hopefully have some more success and play some finals footy,” Power said.

“The last three years it’s all been about the process of getting games into players who had previously only played a couple of games, and now we’re finding we’ve got a number of players on our list who’ve played 50-60-70 games.

“That development is always ongoing, but with the way we finished last year we’re confident we’re building something pretty exciting this year and playing some great footy.”

Power identified young ruckman Matthew Leuenberger as the youngster most likely to have an impact in 2008, although he warned the competition to look out for 198cm Mitchell Clark, who’s been dogged by injury since being recruited in 2005.

“I remember in one of Mitch’s first practice game when he came to the club he kicked five in 20 minutes on Mal Michael, who was at the top of his game at that point,” Power said.

“He does show a lot of signs but unfortunately he hasn’t been able to get his body right for the rigours of AFL football, but we’re hoping he’s going to be able to strengthen up and have the resilience to have a really good year and a great future.

“We’d absolutely love him to play, and if we can get Daniel Bradshaw out there as well we might be able to move Braddy into defence and have Mitch into the forward line.”

Power also paid tribute to new signing Travis Johnstone, secured during last season’s trade week in arguably the week’s second most talked-about deal after Chris Judd’s move to Carlton.

“Travis will release a lot of pressure on the Blacks, Lappins and Adcocks of the team,” Power said.

“He’s such a laid-back character, he fits in very well with the Brisbane lifestyle and he’s been great since he joined.

“He’s going to add a lot to our team and you don’t recruit class players like that every day of the week, so he’s going to add to the depth of our side.”