The Lions tackle Russells Creek at Walter Oval to kick-off the Warrnambool and District league season on Saturday, April 2 and for Matheson it's exciting to be thinking about getting a clean run at it.

"We don't know what COVID will bring or not bring so we're planning for a normal round one," he told The Standard.

"It's exciting - we haven't lost too many off our list and we've added some depth too.

"We're not sure how Russells Creek will look but at the end of the day we will just worry about us."

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There is list changes aplenty - more coming in than coming out - with the likes of former Allansford skipper Justin Fedley looking strong on the track while former junior Tim Ryan is back after a stint with South Warrnambool and will spearhead the forward line where he has been known to nudge the 100-goal mark in a season.

Matheson said it was vital to add certain components to the list this season but signalled a shift in forward structure to unlock the potential and firepower in the attacking arc.

"We identified a couple of things in our practice matches that we need to improve on but we've had pretty much the same list for a few years so we're confident in the way we structure up," he said.

"The biggest area of improvement is what we do in our forward 50, so now that we've got a few taller players down there we're building some structures around that.

"Tim will play deep forward but we've got Tim Rhook who'll play higher as a tall forward."

Quicker ball movement and a focus on opening up the ground will be on the Lions' agenda this season.

"A big issue last year was we couldn't kick big scores against the top four teams, because they had too many tall defenders so at least we can neutralise them now," he said.

"If we have clean ball use out of the back half and kicking to the attacking side we'll be OK. It's not rocket science but we've probably got more firepower up there now.

"The days of boot banging are gone, good teams will just roll numbers and defenders back, so it becomes an easy transition out.

"It is important that the quicker we move the ball off half-back the more one-on-ones you create and catch out defenders."

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