Brisbane Lions young gun Richard Hadley has little trouble remembering his first game of senior AFL football.

That's because he made his debut at the same time tropical cyclone Abigail smashed the north Queensland coastline near Cairns, bringing with it heavy rain and wind.

Officials were close to calling the 2001 pre-season clash between Brisbane and the Bulldogs off for the two days leading up to the match.

But with the cyclone dropping in intensity shortly after crossing the coast, officials decided to proceed with the contest just an hour before the opening bounce.

"It was my first senior game at that level and the nerves were up already," Hadley recalled.

"I had a shot in front of goal and (because of the wind) kicked it out on the full which wasn't a good start.

"I copped a pretty hard time from the Bulldogs players. They told me to go back to school because I was pretty young in the face."

Four years on and Hadley, now an established member of the Lions outfit, is set to return to the site of his debut game.

The versatile 21-year-old will be one of the Lions' "senior" players for next weekend's Wizard Cup clash against Melbourne in Cairns with the club rocked by a number of injuries to key personnel.

Skipper Michael Voss, Nigel Lappin, Darryl White, Jonathan Brown, Simon Black, Jamie Charman and Beau McDonald will all miss the match through injury.

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