It is one of football’s odd curiosities that the first game of a new season, worth no more than every other game and quickly confined to history, carries an extra weighting on the players ‘want to play’ list.

For 38 years the fascination was Round 1. Last year it was the new ‘Opening Round’, as it was to be this year until the intervention of Cyclone Alfred last week and the subsequent cancellation of the Lions game against Geelong at the Gabba.

Now, it’s all about Saturday afternoon’s Round 1 clash with Sydney at the SCG. And it’s why Harris Andrews will be delighted to claim a slice of club history as he leads his side out for his 10^th consecutive ‘season opener’ in a row.

Having debuted in Round 3 2015 against Richmond at the Gabba, when he had nine possessions, a goal and 13 hit-outs in a 79-point loss, Andrews has played Round 1 or Opening Round every year since.

He’ll be just the ninth player in Brisbane history to play 10 in a row, joining a group headed by the 15-in-a-row club record of Daniel Rich. He played the first game in each of his 15 seasons.

Marcus Ashcroft (13), Shaun Hart (12), Nigel Lappin and Luke Power (11), Justin Leppitsch, Darryl White and Daniel Merrett (10) have also opened 10 consecutive seasons.

Simon Black played 14 season-openers in total – two runs of seven split by a X-match suspension incurred in the 2004 grand final that delayed his start to 2005.

Ashcroft, Hart, Lappin, White and Michael Voss played 13, Leppitsch 12, Power and Jonathan Brown 11, and Merrett, Jed Adcock, Daniel Bradshaw, Ash McGrath and Dayne Zorko 10.

Zorko, who debuted in Round 7 2012 aged 23, missed Round 1 in 2016 through suspension and 2023 due to injury.

Lachie Neale will play the first game of a new season for the 12^th consecutive time in his career – it will be his seventh in a row for Brisbane after five in a row at Fremantle.

Ryan Lester also will notch his 10^th season-opener on Thursday night but it’s been a different journey. He debuted in Round 1 2011, played again in 2012 and added five in a row from 2014-18.

But he’s opened the season only twice in the last six years – 2021 and ’24 – before the stunning revitalisation of his career last year as he finished sixth in the Merrett/Murray Medal in a premiership year.

At the other end of the scale, Logan Morris, Lions 2024 Rookie of the Year, will play his first season-opener.

There will be at least four changes to the side that opened the ’24 premiership campaign, with Joe Daniher and Jarryd Lyons having retired, and Keidean Coleman and Darcy Gardiner still in rehabilitation from knee reconstructions.

Despite having played finals the last six years in a row, and won more games than any other club, the Lions have a 2-4 record in the season-opener in that time.

They beat West Coast at the Gabba in 2019, when Neale, Lyons and Lincoln McCarthy debuted for the club, but they lost by 28 points to Hawthorn at the MCG in Round 20, when Deven Robertson debuted.

In 2021 they fell to Sydney by 31 points at the Gabba in Harry Sharp’s AFL debut and Daniher’s first game in Lions colours, and in 2022 they hosted Port Adelaide and came from 15 points down at three-quarter time to win by 11 points in Darcy Fort’s Brisbane debut.

In 2023, as Will Ashcroft debuted and Josh Dunkley, Jack Gunston and Conor McKenna wore Lions colours for the first time they copped a 54-point pasting from Port at Adelaide Oval, and last year, after leading by 32 points at quarter-time and 46 points midway through the second quarter, they lost by a point to Carlton at the Gabba.

Previously in the Chris Fagan era they welcomed the new coach in 2017 with a two-point Carrara win over Gold Coast after leading 7-3 to 0-1 after 18 minutes,  but lost to StKilda by 25 points at Marvel Stadium in Round 1 2018 when Cam Rayner debuted and Luke Hodge and Charlie Cameron were first-time Lions.

The crowd last year of 33,367 was the third-biggest for a season opener at the Gabba behind the 36,197 who turned out in 2003 against Essendon, and the 34,028 against Sydney in 2004.

After the club’s first premiership in 2001 they curiously played ‘away’ in Round 1 2002.

Charlie Cameron will take a ‘live’ streak of 145 consecutive games into the new season, second in the League behind the 237-game run of Collingwood’s Jack Crisp, and second in club history behind Marcus Ashcroft’s 170-game streak from 1992-2000.

Darcy Wilmot has played 56 games in a row from his debut in the 2022 finals but is only half way to the club record of consecutive games from debut – Jack Redden’s 112 from 2009-14.

Cam Rayner has played 55 games in a row, Jaspa Fletcher 41 in a row from debut, and Ryan Lester, going into his 15^th season, is on a personal-best 41-game streak.