NORTH Melbourne coach Dean Laidley said Saturday night's loss to Brisbane could be put down to one simple thing - not winning enough contested football.

The Lions were comfortable 31-point winners in the end, but the stats told a damning story, with Brisbane going inside the attacking 50 on 64 occasions to the Kangaroos' 38.

Despite the massive discrepency, North were within four goals during the last quarter before losing 18.21 (129) to 15.8 (98).

But Laidley was not impressed with his midfield, which was dominated by the ever-improving Lions.

"We didn't win enough football and got out-pointed in the midfield and I was pretty disappointed in that area of our game," he said.

"We only went inside 38 times and had 22 scoring shots so when we did get it in there our forwards did a pretty good job but we just didn't get it in there enough, we didn't win enough ball."

At the other end of the field, Brisbane did plenty of damage with its forward entries.

The two-pronged attack of Daniel Bradshaw and Jonathan Brown booted six goals each and dominated Kangaroos backmen Michael Firrito and Josh Gibson.

However Laidley was not laying the blame on his under-siege defenders, saying the constant supply was more the problem. He also added that there were few tall defensive options he could turn to.

"It's all we've got," he said. "We could have put Petrie back there but he was kicking goals.

"We still kicked nearly 100 points and when we were getting it in there we were scoring.

"We got to within 18 or 19 points at the 20-minute mark of the third quarter so even though they were kicking goals at that end we just needed to kick consecutive goals.

"If we had have kept winning more ball and getting it inside our forward 50, we keep scoring, because the pattern of the game shows you that.

That also means it's not going down their end enough, so we were happy with our forward line but we just needed to win more football and get it in there more.

"We're not that keen on playing spare players behind the footy.

"I don't think you win premierships doing it. Sometimes during a game for bits and pieces you might do it but all in all contests and winning contested footy wins premierships."

Laidley went on to say Brisbane was one of the best teams in the competition.

While everyone was talking about Hawthorn, the Bulldogs and Geelong, he rated the Lions "pretty highly" and thought they were "close to the mark".

Laidley said the play of debutant Gavin Urquhart and youngster Matt Riggio were positives from the match.