FRUSTRATED coach Chris Scott said Geelong must find a way to improve or risk being left behind by the competition following a night of missed opportunities against Brisbane at the Gabba.

After leading by 32 points in a wet first half, the Cats faded badly after the main break to lose by nine and drop to a 1-2 win-loss record.

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Scott was cryptic in some of his assessment, saying Brisbane moved the ball better in the second half as they owned territory with a 39-14 inside 50 advantage in the final two quarters.

"We had a few issues I won't talk about that made it hard for us," Scott said.

"In simple terms the ball was in their forward half way too long in the third quarter and didn't give us a chance to put their defence under any pressure.

"There were some issues we will review really hard and will kind of rue the lost opportunity, because we did have control of the game.

"I'm probably going to say this a lot this year, it's a game of inches and every opposition you play is pretty good, it doesn't need to be the reigning premier necessarily to remind you how tough the competition is."

Geelong was without five-time All-Australian Tom Stewart who was a late withdrawal after being named on Thursday night following his knee injury against St Kilda in round two.

Scott said Geelong always took as long as possible to make judgements on its players and the fact Stewart flew north indicated how close he was.

"I'm told we should be really confident he'll be right next week," he said.

With winless Melbourne up next at GMHBA Stadium on Friday night, followed by unbeaten Adelaide in Gather Round and league leaders Hawthorn on Easter Monday, Scott said the Cats were far from panicking.

"We try to look forward. There have been so many years we've ended up in a pretty good position where you look back and think "that game's really going to hurt us", and in the end it hasn't mattered.

"You can't change it anyway.

"I think we'll come away thinking for big parts of that game we had it under control and it's very annoying we let it slip.

"We've made a few critical errors in patches of the last two games that have cost us and that's all it takes.

"If we don't find a way to improve, the competition looks pretty ominous."

Brisbane counterpart Chris Fagan was all smiles with his team's come-from-behind win.

It was the third time this season – after trailing by 24 points against Sydney and 31 against West Coast – they have overturned big first-half deficits to prevail.

Fagan took responsibility for his team's slow start.

"Maybe it was a bit of my fault because I was pre-occupied with wet weather footy before the game and at half-time I just said "play dry weather footy, boys" and the uncontested mark game went up, the pressure went up and we got better at clearance and contested ball," he said.

"I think they were playing a bit cautious in the conditions, and they needed to be encouraged to be brave and take the game on a bit.

"I think we've shown a lot of character as a group at the moment.

"We're probably not playing our best football, although I did think in the second half tonight you saw that's probably us somewhere near our best."

Small forward Kai Lohmann left the field during the third quarter after appearing to re-injure the same ankle that kept him out of last Sunday's win over the Eagles.

"I don't know whether he'll be OK next week or not," Fagan said.