It is with cautious optimism that senior coach Adam Simpson projects forward a month to the season opener against North Melbourne at Marvel Stadium, but players being deployed in a variety of roles is part of the master plan.

It is the off shoot of drafting and recruiting quality players into the squad as well as a plan to use experienced midfielders Luke Shuey and Elliot Yeo across half back. He sees multi-faceted players as the looming trend and is ready to climb on board.

“I feel like we have seven or eight players who can play in different roles and that will be part of what we do going forward, that’s where the game’s at," Simpson offered today.

“Elliot has been playing a bit back, Luke has been playing back, Reuben (draftee Reuben Ginbey) has been playing back. Tom Cole didn’t play last year and Jeremy McGovern didn’t play much either.

“We just want to get better; we want to get our best players on the park. We introduced some new things last year that we didn’t really see; whether that’s better in transition, quicker ball movement or better team defence.”

As the club begins to ramp up the program over the next three weeks, Simpson said his team was in good shape – although he is anxious about a Friday intra-club practice match, followed by match simulation against Port Adelaide and a practice match against Adelaide.

“We’re pretty healthy at the moment but we’re not over the line,” he said. “We have got 4-5 players who will play a half this week, three quarters next week and some who won’t play. We are definitely ahead of this time last year.

“But it is an anxious time. When you miss a year of football, it’s not just you’re back and away; other things pop up. It’s not necessarily the injury they’re coming back from it’s other parts of their body and their prep we have to look after. Some of the older guys who are not spring chickens, we have to look after them as well.

“Our strength and conditioning guys have done a power of work to prepare the boys as best we can. It won’t be a normal situation where we have 42 players available every week in the build to round one, but we’re hoping to have pretty good numbers – not far off our full list for round one.

“We have multiple players who don’t do every minute of every week (in training). Oscar is a classic, he didn’t play a game last year and he hasn’t missed a session.

“He had a stress-related injury, so just making sure we don’t cook him, he won’t be playing in the intraclub this week.”

The intensity of the match simulation won’t be raised this Friday evening, but the players will be given additional match time to continue their progression.

“This week, it’s just more minutes. I get the feeling across the competition the guys started playing practice matches like we did straight after the break,” he said.  “Every Friday is an intra-club, so all we are doing is extending. Last week played about 70 minutes and this week we will play 100 minutes.

“Then it’s Port and we will probably play six quarters and everyone on the list will get a look. Then we will do the same against Adelaide before a week off leading into round one.

“We’re getting to the point now where we’re ready to play a different team.”

As the build-up to round one gathers momentum Simpson also indicated a number of young players would be in the mix if they maintained their form in the next month.

“They’re not far off, without putting too much pressure on those kids,” he said. “There’s probably 18 guys that if they’re fit and available with the experience and talent they have, they’re probably in our best side.

“Then there’s four or five guys fighting for four or five spots. Then there’s the young guys we have brought to the club – and that includes (Jayden) Hunt as well – they are getting opportunities and they are standing up.

“Whoever deserves it, plays. I think three or four years ago we played four debutants in round one; it might have been the first game at Optus Stadium and Liam Ryan, Jake Waterman, Dan Venables. So things can change pretty quick when you get the young talent through.

“We won’t rush it but if their form is good enough, we’ll play them.”