PORT ADELAIDE senior assistant coach Michael Voss is impressed with the progression of the young playing group at Alberton.

Voss says the squad came back in great condition from the Christmas break, which allows for a stronger focus on match play as they look ahead to the intra-club match in the middle of February.

“We are at the phase now where we are starting the pretty heavy match simulation,” Voss told media at a press conference on Monday afternoon.

“As opposed to last year where we were introducing a lot of new concepts and getting around what that structure looked like.

“We are a fair bit clearer on the roles we want players to play, which gives us a chance to get into a bit more detail.

“If we can increase the depth of knowledge of our players and give some positional exposure, then this is the time of the year to do it.

“We feel well and truly advanced than this time last year.”

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The Brisbane triple premiership player said the list is still made up of a number of young players who are in the development phase, but he believes they are getting into a position where they can be reliable under pressure.

“We are still in that stage where we have a lot developing,” Voss said.

“So, whether that’s got to do with the basics of contest, ball movement and understanding how we move the ball around.

“We still dedicate a fair bit of time to the simple things in the game, that will never change over 100 years of footy.

“We need to be more reliable when the pressure comes, and the guys have done a heap of work in that and dedicated a lot of time.

“We would like to see some improvement in a few of those areas.”

Voss and the rest of the coaching group are looking at some positional moves for certain players in 2020, but assured there wouldn’t be any sweeping changes.

“The first match committee is always an interesting one,” he said.

“Where you might have thought of playing someone ends up being somewhere else. Positionally we know we want to give some players different roles and different exposure.

“Having Connor (Rozee) play more midfield. Karl (Amon) spent some more time inside midfield last year. Getting (Zak) Butters more midfield time - he played a lot at half-forward last year.

“We want to start to give exposure to these guys around the middle of the ground. This is the chance for them to understand the structure and running patterns that are required.”