STATISTICS show fourth quarters are killing the Brisbane Lions.

Through the opening five rounds they are yet to win a final term.

Winless North Melbourne is the only other team sharing that dubious stat.

What's most frustrating for Lions coach Chris Fagan is his team has been in position to win four of the five matches but come away with the points just once – in the first round against Gold Coast.

Speaking on Friday ahead of playing Port Adelaide, Fagan says the final term fades is a vexed issue.

"It's certainly not our fitness because we look at our GPS numbers and how hard we're running and we're certainly not dropping away," he said.

"Perhaps it's a little bit of our younger players conditioning to AFL footy and it's a little bit of (lack) of belief too, from having a period of time at the club where we haven't won a lot of games of football and just knowing how to get to the line.

"We don't shy away from the truth, we just have to get better at those things."

The Lions have kicked just eight goals in their five fourth quarters and lost the term by an average of 19 points.

They led against both Essendon and the Western Bulldogs at three-quarter time before losing.

It's helped feed into a theme of "honourable losses" that Fagan has been desperate to avoid.

"I have to be patient and impatient on that topic," he said.

"We're not happy that it's happening and we've got to work away at it, but as long as we're seeing growth and improvement in those areas we'll be satisfied with that because we know in the end we'll get there."

Fagan says he's looking at the bigger picture.

Rather than focusing at what went wrong in the dying stages against the Bulldogs last weekend, the Lions reviewed their seven-goal second quarter when they tore the reigning premiers apart.

"What we got out of that quarter is that our good is very good," Fagan said.

"We're in the business of winning and we're in the business of improving and we're in the business of learning to win, so our losses, as honest as they've been, we really only treat them like learning experiences."