Collingwood defender Harry O'Brien says he will start the 2010 AFL season in the third phase of a footballer's career, and is hopeful it will help the Magpies beat the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

After a much-improved 2009, when he ran fourth in the Magpies' best and fairest, O'Brien said he was no longer focused on playing well individually, so long as his team won an elusive premiership.

O'Brien, 23, said his next challenge was epitomising the idea of playing selfless football and becoming completely team-oriented.

That attitude will be handy on Sunday when the Magpies need to curb a Bulldogs forward line strengthened by Barry Hall, who will make his premiership debut in the red, blue and white.

"My biggest focus for the year is simply to be the most selfless player I can be for my team, always putting my team first," O'Brien said.

"Through AFL players' careers they do go through different phases where initially they just want to play games of football and once they slowly get cemented they want to play really good football personally.

"Then the next phase is wanting to contribute to getting a team into a premiership.

"That's where I'm at at the moment, in my role in the leadership group.

"All I want to do is play my part for the team and play as selfless as I can and not go outside of that, that's where I can take my football to the next level."

The Bulldogs were already the highest-scoring team in the competition before they recruited Hall, and will be further bolstered by the inclusions of skipper Brad Johnson and Mitch Hahn, who have both overcome injuries.

Sunday will be Johnson's 350th career game.

O'Brien said the Magpies had to apply defensive pressure across the ground to slow the Doggies' scoring, and was confident the backline could build on its impressive efforts in 2009.

"The Bulldogs are a very talented team and the forward line in particular, you've got some really fantastic players down there," he said.

"As a backline we're just going to treat it as any other team.

"We know we can identify their strengths, but most importantly we're going to identify our own strengths and how we're going to beat them. That's the way we look at things."

The Bulldogs and Magpies both reached preliminary finals last year, and adding to Sunday's match-of-the-round status, Collingwood will also field two high-profile debutants.

Former Sydney ruckman Darren Jolly will play his first game for the Magpies, and is likely to have former St Kilda midfielder Luke Ball alongside him in the centre square.

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