Port Adelaide coach Matthew Primus has confirmed the Power have former Collingwood veteran Leon Davis on their radar and have asked the ex-Magpie about his 2012 plans.

Davis, 30, told Collingwood on Monday that after 225 matches with the Magpies he wanted to move away from Victoria to be with his family.

Davis' partner lives in South Australia and his family in Western Australia.

Primus said on Thursday the club had spoken to the two-time All Australian, who has said he is open to living in either Perth or Adelaide. He said the club had made no guarantee about taking Davis in the pre-season draft in December. 

"We've made contact with him to see where he's at with his footy and what he's willing to do, like the clubs in Adelaide and Perth are probably doing," the Power coach said.

"We'll take it from there. At the moment he's on our radar, but we're just interested to see where he's at with his footy."

Primus said the Power's strategy for the November 24 NAB AFL Draft would see them the best player available for their first selection at No.6, and then assessing what was left when it came to later picks.

He said they were open to either young players or mature-aged recruits, and were leaning towards leaving a selection free for the December NAB AFL Pre-season Draft.

The Power started their pre-season on Thursday with a series of fitness and medical checks at the University of South Australia.

Primus promised a tougher summer program for his squad after a disappointing 2011 that produced three wins and a 16th-place finish, and was already buoyed by the almost complete list of players that would commence training over the next week.

"Every year everyone says it's going to be a harder one, but it's definitely going to be harder than last year," he said.

"It's going to be more time on legs, more time educating them, more time spent in the gym and on the field.

"We're in a lot better condition to start off pre-season day one than what we were last year and we're going to need most of our group to do all of the training.

"Last year we had about 50 per cent of our group doing most of our pre-season and this year we're hoping to have the majority of our guys get through it.

"If we can do that, they'll be able to sustain that high-intensity football for all of the year."

Primus said the players' motivation to put together a productive pre-season was high, and the aim was to ensure the group was fit and strong enough to run out games all year rather than falling away as it did in 2011.

"We're going to learn as a group and develop as a group, and we've got a playing group that is pretty unique where it's at with age and experience, but we've got a playing group that's pretty disappointed about where we finished off last year," he said.

"They certainly want to improve. It's not easy to improve; every other club is trying to do the same thing.

"We started a little bit earlier than eight other clubs; there are eight other clubs starting right now, and we're going to make sure everything we do is about becoming a better football club and show to our supporters how much we do want to improve."

Primus also said he was thrilled with the Power's coaching group, which has been bolstered by the appointments of Josh Carr, Shaun Rehn and Brad Gotch, and, on Wednesday, Tyson Edwards to join Daniel Healy and Matthew Nicks in the development team.

He said the group would give him more latitude to delegate and concentrate more directly on coaching.

"I think we've got a lot more support to take off other jobs, to look after training, little bits and pieces I won't have to do," he said.

"I can just coach and concentrate on building pretty good relationships with the players and making sure our program is running smoothly."