PORT Adelaide coach Mark Williams will ignore the elephant in the room when he addresses his players before Thursday's AFL season opener against Geelong at AAMI Stadium.

Figuring too much has already been said about Port's humiliating 119-point surrender to the Cats in last year's grand final, Williams will instead concentrate on the practical path to unseating a team placed off-balance by the enforced withdrawal of senior ruckman Brad Ottens.

Williams was surprised to hear Ottens (ankle) would not be taking his place in Geelong's 22, and must be privately pleased the battle between Brendon Lade and Dean Brogan and Cats talls Mark Blake and debutant Trent West can now be seen as an area of strength for the Power.

Points of difference from the grand final are otherwise thin on the ground: Port take in 19 of the players who were crushed last September, while the Cats have 17 of their premiership side.

Many of the changes, like Tom Hawkins' presence instead of the retired Nathan Ablett, will do little to change either team's structure, while Port's most significant absentee is veteran Michael Wilson (achilles), who did not play in the Grand Final.

"(The Grand Final) might be mentioned in passing but without doubt everyone else will bring it up so I don't think we need to cloud their heads with too much more," Williams said.

"I'm sure all you people and anyone else who wants to talk to them can, but as far as we're concerned we're playing here and it's 0-0.

"If you looked at their preseason form, they lose by a kick in Canberra and then they belted every other side, so I would expect them to be in cherry ripe form and very confident.

"All we've been working on over preseason is playing a little better, teaming a little better together and understanding the different groups what they're trying to do.

"We win a lot of games, so when we lose it probably gets over analysed by everyone including ourselves, but you look for a team capable of not losing so what beats us, how can we combat that."

Key defender Troy Chaplin's failure to recover from a broken hand in time has left a spot for young backline option Paul Stewart, giving the Power's defence an even more callow look than last year.

Williams though was bullish in his expectation of great things from a young group, much as they had taken almost all before them in 2007.

"There's no doubt we'll have a less experienced side as soon as Wakes (Darryl Wakelin) is out but last year people would've said that as well and we did pretty well with that, what they lose in experience they bring in enthusiasm and that's what we're looking for," he said.

"I'm really happy with Paul's form over the pre-season and to get another first-year, first-game player up is terrific for our club and we need personnel like Paul to develop and we'll give him every opportunity."

Cats coach Mark Thompson and his players flew in to Adelaide confident of their capabilities after a summer where the only blip was a narrow loss to pre-season cup winners St Kilda in Canberra.

"It's always a hard assignment playing in Adelaide, and playing Port Adelaide, who are a really good team, makes it a very challenging game," Thompson said before leaving Melbourne.

"We've been in pretty good form and we go over expecting a really competitive game and we're hoping we do really well.

"It's been a long time but obviously they would be [hurting from the record grand final defeat].

"The one team they probably would really like to beat would be Geelong."