Brisbane maestro Simon Black may not need to argue too hard to talk his way into playing the Lions' season-opener against West Coast.

Without a minute of action in the pre-season due to four different ailments, Black's availability for Saturday night's clash will be decided in a private conversation with coach Michael Voss.

Even though another former premiership teammate, and now assistant coach, Justin Leppitsch last week rated the star midfielder "highly unlikely", Voss on Monday gave strong indications Black would play at the Gabba.

The rookie coach said his vice-captain, last year's Brownlow Medal runner-up, was determined to play despite being hamstrung by ankle surgery, a broken wrist, a nerve-related back problem and a recent bout of gastroenteritis.

"As opposed to the fact Blacky has had a couple of interruptions during the pre-season he looks as physically ready as you'd have seen him," Voss said.

"He's in fantastic condition again, he's incredibly resilient and he's certainly a champion of the game.

"He's pretty confident. He doesn't need a lot of work to come to hand, Blacky.

"He's trained for 14-odd years to be able to play league football so he doesn't need a lot.

"The comment was made that if half our players were as fit as Simon Black we'd have a pretty good team."

Voss also gave hope to the chances of key duo Jamie Charman and Daniel Merrett lining up against the Eagles after coming through their first match of the year unscathed.

Ruckman Charman (knee) and full-back Merrett (quad) gained a special clearance to play in the local AFLQ competition for Aspley on the weekend and did enough to suggest they will be selected on Thursday night.

Crumbing forward Ash McGrath (calf) will have to work harder to prove his fitness, while West Australian first-round draft pick Daniel Rich is well in the mix to make his debut.

The Lions won just one of their four pre-season matches, their NAB Cup opener against St Kilda, and were badly beaten by Melbourne and Richmond in their final two trials.

But Voss liked enough of what he saw in the final quarter against the Tigers at Carrara when his young side learned a valuable lesson by backing themselves.

Brisbane got immediate results by playing more direct through the middle of the field after spending the match "playing it safe".

"The guys have the skill level we just have to back ourselves in more often," Voss said.

"Last quarter when we did that we were able to turn it around and play some good football. We started hitting targets.

"What changed was our attitude and our approach with the football."

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