Gold Coast say they’ve done all they can to prepare a young backline to handle Richmond’s big forwards in Saturday’s AFL season opener.

The Suns will hand debuts to Sean Lemmens and Clay Cameron against the Tigers with key defender Rory Thompson and experienced Nathan Bock unavailable.

The Tigers’ forward line includes 200cm giants Ben Griffiths and Ty Vickery while Jack Riewoldt is only five centimetres behind his frontline partners.

Matthew Warnock is the tallest of the Sun’s defenders at 195cm, while Lemmens and Cameron will also face challenges in the half-back line.

Suns’ assistant coach Andy Lovell admits the Tigers’ height and experience had been a worry going into the clash but the coaching staff were confident in the team they’d picked.

“We know that their talls have been in pretty good form. Vickery’s a really good mark,” Lovell said.

“They’ve recruited Hampson from Carlton whose had a really good pre-season for them as well as Griffiths.

“We’ve prepared for it and we just have to back our boys in. Matty Warnock’s had a career of playing on players bigger than him and brings a wealth of experience.

“We’ve got some young players – debutants – playing in the team but at the end of the day what we’ve done is picked the team based on form and they’ve really earned their spot.

“Seanie Lemmens and Clay Cameron in particular, in the backline, their pre-season has been outstanding.”

The Suns made a late change to their line-up on Friday with midfielder Andrew Boston replaced by Tim Sumner in what Lovell called a “technical glitch” in the original line-up.

With Fremantle waiting in round two, Lovell said laying down a marker similar to the Suns’ round one win over St Kilda last year would be important.

“Round one is only one game in a 22-game season but if you look back to last year we played quite well and beat St Kilda up here and it’s a real launchpad to your season,” he said.