Suns coach Guy McKenna has played down growing fears about Gary Ablett's groin problem, revealing he plans to unleash his skipper as a substitute in Gold Coast's NAB Cup opener.

McKenna said on Thursday that Ablett was on track to play some part in the fledgling club's pre-season matches against Greater Western Sydney and the Sydney Swans in Blacktown on February 19.

Concerns about the 2009 Brownlow medallist's groin-hip injury heightened on Wednesday when local media were initially told he would not answer questions about his fitness at a press conference to promote Coast junior clubs.

Ablett, who was expected to be kept in cotton wool for the Suns' AFL debut against Carlton on April 2, did eventually admit he hoped to be playing as soon as possible.

"I am not here to talk about the injury," he said.

"I am just looking forward to the games coming around and I can't say exactly when I will be playing."

But McKenna felt the superstar on-baller's training work this week suggested he could cope with one or two brief cameos in the shortened NAB Cup games under the new substitute system.

"If there's a risk I'll obviously not play him, but from a club point of view it would be great to have him out there," the coach told AAP.

"As many minutes we could possibly have him out there - I would want that to happen.

"If that means he just plays half of a half under NAB Cup rules then let's do it and that's what we're going to do.

"The risk isn't the injury, the risk is his miles in his legs.

"Has he got enough miles in his legs to play a full game? Probably not. Has he got enough miles to play half a game? Probably."

McKenna defended Ablett's reluctance to answer questions about his injury, which sidelined him from training last week, saying the captain wanted to avoid a pre-season circus.

"To be honest he didn't want the to-ing and fro-ing leading up to round one," he said.

"The simple answer is he was going there for another reason for the footy club.

"I took it as a positive, he wanted to take the focus off himself and wanted to promote the activity of the juniors."

McKenna said Ablett had a hip injection last month for a problem that dated back to 2005.

With Jarrod Harbrow and Nathan Krakouer backing up well after surgery, the coach hopes to have all his mature-age recruits available for the NAB Cup opener and indicated league convert Karmichael Hunt was likely to play.

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