BRISBANE Lions coach Justin Leppitsch hasn't ruled a line through Dayne Beams' season, despite the star midfielder being a late withdrawal from Saturday night's loss against North Melbourne.

Beams has been nursing a shoulder injury for weeks and was in obvious pain against Melbourne in his last start.

He described it as "a little bit sore" during the week.

Watch Justin Leppitsch's full media conference here

It was clearly worse than that though, as the tough-as-nails midfielder was a late scratching and missed his first game of the season.

Leppitsch said Beams was likely to go in for surgery at some stage, although he would have no say on when.

"It’s too early for that sort of stuff, unless he can’t perform with it, (and then) he’ll go in," Leppitsch said.

"If he’s fine, he wants to be out there with the boys, which is really admirable.

"I leave all medical decisions up to the medical team and the player.

"They come to me to say who’s available, who’s not."

Pearce Hanley was another pre-game withdrawal, unable to overcome a back-related hamstring injury that forced him to leave the game against Melbourne during the third term.

In his five games this season, Hanley has been subbed out twice with hamstring problems.

Leppitsch said Hanley could have played against the Kangaroos, but decided to take the cautious approach.

Five talking points: Brisbane Lions v North Melbourne

"We were worried that he hasn’t finished many games, thought he needed more training," Leppitsch said.

"There’s no point putting Pearce in if he’s going to be subbed off at half-time or feeling something halfway through the second quarter again.

"He just wasn’t confident enough, that’s all."

Leppitsch said the most disappointing thing in the 72-point loss was the lack of discipline and final quarter fadeout.

The Lions conceded 32 free kicks and watched North Melbourne kick seven final quarter goals to blow the margin out.

"The last 10 minutes was a bit head dropping … from the group," he said.

"The boys, to their credit, admitted it after the game. They took control of the meeting and realised it’s not what we want to stand for as a group."