Adelaide captain Brett Maher will miss his team's pre-season match against Cairns at the Distinctive Homes Dome on Friday but will play on Sunday against Brisbane despite his groin injury.

"Brett's actually come up very well and is completely over the (groin) injury," 36ers coach Phil Smyth told The Advertiser's Boti Nagy. "He could've played against Cairns as it turns out but we've decided not to push that.

"But he's well on schedule."

Nagy reported that Adelaide are expected to start with Brad Davidson, Darren Ng, Matt Sutton, Adam Ballinger and Axel Dench as they taske on the Taipans, who are considered a strong Finals chance since signing Rashad Tucker, Larry Abney and Stephen Black.

"Our thinking was if we're going to have pre-season games, let's play against the better teams," Smyth said.

"Cairns has been tipped to finish top three, Brisbane is the champion and obviously that's why we also played Melbourne."

"It's not much use playing a team from Ballarat or something.

"You want to see how you stack up against the elite."

Smyth said Adelaide needed to develop strong defence, as it did during its title years.

"We want to build our consistency as a team around our defence," he said. "It's a new group but they've been on an accelerated learning curve."

Brisbane and Cairns will play each other Friday before the 36ers face the champion Bullets on Sunday.

Adelaide will play Perth in Port Lincoln next week.