CHRIS Fagan has revisited a mid-season mantra that helped resurrect Brisbane's season, imploring his team to play with freedom against Greater Western Sydney on Saturday night.

The Lions were languishing in 13th place with just four wins from their first 11 games when Fagan told them to "dance" and play unhindered, with flair.

Brisbane then rattled off nine consecutive wins, thrashing the Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide following its mid-season bye to force its way back into the premiership race.

However, late-season stumbles against GWS and Collingwood took away a top-four chance, which Fagan says his team has learnt from.

"I felt like we'd moved away from that 'walking on thin ice, you might as well dance' thing," Fagan said on Thursday morning.

"I felt like in the Collingwood game and the Giants game we started to become too aware of where we were on the ladder and started playing to protect our spot rather than continuing on that play we had prior to that, with that bit of freedom and 'see what happens' attitude.

"We had a chat about that, the players felt like that too.

"We've cleared our heads of that."

Fagan said the attitude had returned in the final round against Essendon and elimination final win over Carlton and he would hope for the same against the Giants on Saturday night.

"We came from a long way back to get into finals, so we're just going to continue to play aggressively, take the game on and put our best foot forward and see what happens," he said.

The coach is still hopeful key defender Jack Payne will be available as he continues to progress following a knee injury against the Blues.

Payne ran with more fluency on Thursday before the main session went behind closed doors, striding out strongly and undergoing some agility testing.

Fagan said the 24-year-old would have to be at least 90 per cent healthy to be considered for selection.