BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss says prize recruit Brendan Fevola is a strong chance to play in the club's NAB Cup clash against the Western Bulldogs.

Should he be selected, the former Carlton spearhead won't be joined by captain Jonathan Brown and veteran midfielder Simon Black, who have already been ruled out of the February 14 game as those players build into the season proper.

The Lions rounded out another pre-season training session in sweltering Brisbane heat on Wednesday morning, where Voss wasn't shy about his NAB Cup plans.

"He just wants to play, he just loves playing and it's not for me to deny that," Voss said of Fevola.

"We've just got to manage his loads between now and the season and make sure that he's ready to go.

"He's had a full pre-season. I think he might have missed one session since we started, so his work and his training has been really, really good.

"You get to this time of year and if you get the opportunity to play, you probably want to play. Fev's no different. While I'm sure he's done well in training, I don't think training is necessarily his favourite part of the week."

Voss said defender Josh Drummond would also be among eight or nine players who would sit out the first game.

One area Voss does not seem concerned with is the chemistry between Fevola and Brown, which has been a huge talking point since Fevola was traded to the Lions after last season.

"I'd have no problem whatsoever if they kicked 170 goals between them," Voss said. "It's good to be able to see both of them being able to compete against one another. I think they gee each other up a fair bit. They've got a good relationship.

"On the field they've got a great understanding. I've been pleasantly surprised. As you'd expect from a very good forward in Fev ... he's very clever about the way he plays his role, so I know that he'll tie in well with Browny, because obviously he's very elite at his position too.

"The big challenge for us is not necessarily whether they can kick the goals, but whether we give them the opportunities. We've spoken a lot about that and done a lot on our ball movement and how we can create more opportunities for our forwards.

"It's pointless having two good forwards or a sensational front six if you can't get the ball there."

Last year, his debut season as coach, Voss took the Lions to the finals for the first time since 2004.

However, he said that 2010 had started out a lot more smoothly because he didn't feel he had to be as much of a "salesman" trying to preach his style of play.

"Now we've seen some evidence of it, I don’t feel like I'm doing that with the players this year," he said.

"They've seen it work, they've seen it function [and] they know if they do it consistently what they can improve. So for us it's about making us better in everything we do."


Image courtesy of Steve Ripper