After an up-and-down first season following his move north from the Melbourne Demons, Travis Johnstone started his second Lions campaign in fine form in the wet and greasy Gold Coast conditions.
The silky-skilled right footer racked up 27 possessions in a solid four-quarter effort that helped the Lions to a nine-point win.
At 28 and with 178 senior games to his credit, Johnstone was clearly one of the Lions' most experienced and it showed.
The midfielder said he was comfortable in Brisbane and looking forward to an improved season this time around.
''I loved it last year under Leigh (Matthews), fantastic coach, and now another total change with Vossy coming in, with totally new ideas with a lot of variety of roles you have to play and I think it's pretty exciting times ahead,'' he said.
''It's early days but if we have faith in what our plan is I'm sure it'll go in our favour.''
But despite some impressive debuts from the likes of Daniel Rich, Aaron Cornelius and Jack Reddan, Johnstone had a warning for his team-mates.
''You can't rely on one or two players, Luke Power, Simon Black or Jonathan Brown. We have to work hard as a team and that's what it's about, enjoying team success and that's how you get to grand finals,” he said.
''You see great teams win grand finals and make the finals and that's where we want to head to.
''Every training session has got purpose and tonight we had a purpose and we stuck to our guns and stuck to what Vossy wanted us to do.
''Geelong and Hawthorn are great teams, they do well together and they obviously do what the coach says and they work as a team.''
