“We do believe in contested ball and we think it’s moving away from our strengths to move away from grunt style.

“We like stoppages, we want to hold the ball in the front half and we want to be aggressive enough to impose our game style on the opposition week in week out.

“But talking about it’s one thing and doing it is another.”

“We’re heading into round one so, once again, watch our footy and let me know in a couple of weeks.

Collingwood will unveil two debutants for Saturday night’s opening-round clash against Hawthorn, with first-round pick Jaidyn Stephenson and former Sydney rookie Sam Murray to come into the side.

Buckley fronted the media shortly after announcing the news to the playing list after training on Tuesday.

“Both those boys will play. Jaiydn’s had a really strong pre-season, hit the ground running for us … we think that he’s earned his opportunity.

“And Sam Murray coming across from Sydney … he’s got really strong dash off the half back line and we think he can add something to us.

Given his pace, Murray would be the likely candidate to play on Cyril Rioli, with the Hawthorn speedster a big chance to play in round one.

The news isn’t as positive for Jamie Elliott, however. The star forward won’t play at any level this weekend as he continues to recover from ankle surgery.

Fellow forward Alex Fasolo and veteran recruit Daniel Wells will play in a VFL practice match against Box Hill on Friday as they push for early-season returns.

The Pies have been absent from the finals since 2013, but Buckley wasn’t giving away too much when it came to expectations for the year.

Although Richmond proved successful with the use of their small forward line, the Pies look likely to have big men Mason Cox and Ben Reid play predominantly as forwards.

Buckley believes there’s a danger in trying to mimic how other teams play and says it’s very dependent on what you have at your disposal.

“We’ve made modifications but fundamentally you come across similar playing lists. We have innate qualities and innate strengths in our list.

“We spent a fair bit of the off-season going back and looking at that, making sure that we are structuring up a game style that actually suits our playing list.

“And as such we were looking within rather than externally to the rest of the competition to how we wanted to play.”