The biggest AFL name to switch clubs in the off-season, the former Collingwood star and Copeland Trophy winner is back in his native Queensland. But while joining Brisbane has represented a homecoming, after six years in Melbourne there's still some re-adjusting to do.

"It's funny, my home is Queensland, I've spent so much of my life here, and when I first moved to Melbourne I always used to whinge about how cold it was. But I've come back to the place I grew up and I'm whingeing about the heat," he laughs. "It's a matter of getting used to it again."

As is the slog of the pre-season in different surroundings. The Lions have already put in a big summer campaign, a group of 15 younger players having gone full-bore at their fitness three weeks before the more seasoned campaigners like Beams returned early in November.

The results of that, he says, were quickly apparent, and have provided another little spur, if one was needed. "I was probably in the better runners during pre-season at Collingwood, but these guys are so fit I'm finding myself back a little bit," he says.

"I never think you can be at a peak as a footballer, there's so many things that change. The game's forever changing, and you've just got to keep adapting and improving." And for Beams in 2015, that won't just be about his own game, but helping pass on the experience of 100-plus AFL games and being part of a premiership team.

After injury wrecked his 2013 campaign with Collingwood, Beams had voluntarily stepped down from the Magpies' leadership group to concentrate on a successful return. Now, to help lift a senior list that has turned over by more than two-thirds over the past two summers, he recognises it's time to step up again.

"That's one area of my game I think I need to take to the next level," he concedes. "I think I'm at the age now and mature enough to be able to share my experiences with the younger guys and take the time to do that.

"I'm going to be working on that, really trying to help make these young guys better players, because at the end of the day, they're the ones who are going make this club better and drive the success. There's some great youth and talent here, and it's just a matter of getting that performing and making it come to fruition on a consistent basis."

Doing so, Beams is likely to find it a bit easier in 2015 with matters on the home front thankfully looking a lot better. Not only is he much closer to the family he treasures, and relishing the chance to play alongside his younger brother Claye for the Lions, but his father Phillip's bowel cancer has been treated effectively with chemotherapy.

"His health is pretty good," he says. "Obviously, you're never fully out of the woods with this stuff, but at the moment he's doing really well. He's got to keep going back for check-ups, but at the moment, he's cancer-free, which is what we were hoping for 12 months ago. He's been pretty lucky in terms of the way he's been able to get through it.

"When he was first diagnosed, it was pretty tough. You always want to be within reach, and being a two-hour flight away made it a bit hard. I spoke to him on a regular basis, and I was there for him when he had his major surgery, but now all the time he's just a 40-minute drive down the highway."

Beams doesn't shy away, though, from a sense of guilt at leaving a club which, with a steady departure of senior faces over the past couple of years, could use his services next season more than ever.

"Absolutely, I felt guilty. I still feel guilt now," he says. "It wasn't an easy thing to do, but you've got to think about what's best for you and your family and what's going to give you the best chance to live a good life, basically. And the most important thing with this is once you make that decision, you've got to really give it 100 per cent, and that's what I've been trying to do."

Beams says Collingwood was understanding of his circumstances, and that the group of his closest mates, the likes of Heath Shaw (another departure), Steele Sidebottom, Clinton Young, and Jarrod Witts and Paul Seedsman, with whom he shared a house for a year while his own was being renovated, will stay that way.

"There's always going to be guys inside footy clubs that you just have a working relationship with, and there's going to be guys you're going to be friends with for life. That's not going to change."

Except, perhaps, on April 4, when the new season is marked by the clash of Beams' old and new teams. He doesn't mind the hype. "Hopefully, we can flog them," he laughs. But it's not just bravado. "I got a taste of what this group was capable of late in the season when they flogged us."

Beams admits to some relief at being out of the bubble that can be the football scene in Melbourne. But after six years in the middle of it, he knows when the Lions do eventually take on the Magpies, all eyes will be on him.

"I'm still going to be a player that's going to be highly scrutinised, that comes with being seen as a good player." And targeted? "Yeah, probably, but you'd expect that," he chuckles. "They'll just do what they have to do, and I'll do what I have to do."

Which, in a sense more important than merely a football game, Beams has already done.