Ten star players will sit out the Club’s opening round of NAB Cup matches at AAMI Stadium on Sunday.

Experienced heads Scott Thompson, Patrick Dangerfield, Taylor Walker, Brent Reilly, Nathan van Berlo, Rory Sloane, Sam Jacobs, Ben Rutten and Jason Porplyzia will watch from the sidelines this week. Bernie Vince, who is recovering from a shoulder injury, has also been left out of the squad.

Jared Petrenko (shoulder), Sam Shaw (knee) and Nick Joyce (groin) are unavailable through injury.

Sanderson said the Club’s more experienced players would be eased into the NAB Cup.

“We’re in a really good position. We had 46 players do the full session today – Joyce was the only one who didn’t - so, we’ve got almost an entire squad to pick from,” Sanderson said on Thursday.

“We’ve got four matches between now and Round One, so this week 10 of our ‘better’ players, I guess you would call them, won’t play any footy. We’ll manage their game time leading into the start of the home and away season.

“Fingers crossed we’ll be in a similar position to last year and have almost a full squad to pick from heading into the early part of the season.”