IT'S NO wonder Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews struggled to find positives from his side's round 22 clash against the Sydney Swans.

His team lost by 61 points, capping a disappointing second half of the season that saw the club slide from an expected finalist midway through the year to an eventual 10th-place finish.

And co-captain Jonathan Brown, whose 70 goals played a large part in the Lions' early-season charge, is yet to commit to the club for next season.

Therefore Matthews was understandably matter-of-fact at his post-game press conference.

"It’s a long time before you play again, but there's not much positive to take out of round 22," he said.

"I don’t think anyone could think we were anything but average on our performance tonight."

However, Matthews did single out Daniel Merrett, who kept Barry Hall to just one goal for the night, for a mention.

The Lions' problems were largely contained at the other end of the ground, where Brown was kept goalless and Daniel Bradshaw managed two second-half goals.

Matthews said scoring accuracy had been an issue for the club all year.

"There are two sides that have less than 50 per cent accuracy and the [15th-placed] Eagles are the other," he said.

"Somehow or other, we’ve been able to stay around the action, but our scoring percentage is about 48 per cent. It’s horrible."

Unearthing a reliably productive small forward looks to be among the Lions' off-season priorities.

The lack of a potent crumber was glaring against the Swans, who found eight goals from small forwards Jarred Moore and Patrick Veszpremi.

"We’ve always struggled to find anyone finding the ball at ground level in the forward line," Matthews said.

"Down the other end, however, their smaller forwards were the goalkickers. They only had one big one in Hall, and Merrett did a pretty good job on him, I thought."

While still unaware of Brown's plans for next year, Matthews said both he and the club "would have liked it to have been put to bed three months ago."

The 26-year-old’s future will be a focus as the Lions hierarchy embarks on an assessment of the club's playing stocks.

"We've got 46 players on our list and we won't have 46 players on our list in a month's time," Matthews said.

"People think you just go, 'See you in five months' time', but there's a lot of work that ends up being done ... and list management is one of them."