Halloran's impressive breakthrough was a glowing highlight amid a chaotic final year for Gold Coast and back-to-back Champions Brisbane fended off strong competition to attract the talented 20-year-old.

Former Roar coach Ange Postecoglou might have left for Melbourne Victory but the winning practices he helped put in place live on with former assistant and new top man Rado Vidosic, and Halloran is impressed with what he has experienced in pre-season with his new club.

“I find with the Roar they're a lot more systematic and measured about their training,” Halloran told au.fourfourtwo.com. “It's nice to be in a set up where they are really professional and specific with that they do.

“It's not just football, we have dieticians and physios and they try to drill into us that it's not just about winning games, it's about trying to set up a professional team that's going to survive in the future as well as now.

“It's the mentality of the club, they work harder than any other team I've been involved with. They're a step up in professionalism and the way they go about it is very thorough and systematic. The way they train is very specific to how we want to perform in games.”

Brisbane's ball-focused and match-specific sessions are still there as Vidosic seeks to continue Roar's now famous passing game but Halloran revealed the coach is applying some significant tactical tweaks to Postecoglou's gameplan.

“They want us to win games in the first ten or 15 minutes of a game, whereas Roar are renowned for winning games in the last 15 minutes,” he said.

“They want to keep the mentality of keeping the ball at all costs and keeping the ball on the deck which they've shown over the last couple of years.

"But Rado wants to penetrate a bit more and be a bit more attacking when we have the ball instead of just keeping it all the time.”

With the new more direct strategy comes a likely switch in formation as German superstar Thomas Broich moves to a central playmaker role in a 4-2-3-1, allowing Halloran and new signing Do Dong-Hyun to use their pace down the wings.

Halloran's individual dribbling was a real feature in Gold Coast's wooden spoon campaign and in a pleasing sign for fans, Vidosic has shown no signs of putting the starlet on a tighter leash.

“He's been really encouraging,” Halloran said. “In that system there's obviously a strong emphasis on that passing game and structures and rotations but he still encourages me to run at players and play my natural game and try to get in behind.

“With players like Broich and (Mitch) Nichols they can feed me balls in behind and I can hopefully set up (Golden Boot Besart) Berisha for a few more goals.”