BRISBANE Lions coach Leigh Matthews believes the side he fielded against Carlton on Saturday night is "capable of being competitive against anybody".

The Lions successfully welcomed back three instrumental players from injury and defeated the Blues by 33 points under a closed roof at Telstra Dome.

The side was boosted by the inclusion of Brownlow Medallist Simon Black, Coleman Medallist Jonathan Brown, and 2005 Melbourne best and fairest Travis Johnstone.

The trio burst back onto the home-and-away scene in scintillating fashion, booting 11 goals between them and amassing a combined 74 possessions.

"We thought the group we've got together had some patches, [played] really top football last year," Matthews said post-match, when asked if his side is starting to blossom after a rebuilding period.

"That made us think there is some good capabilities within the team. We supplemented the team with Travis Johnstone, who I thought was excellent tonight, but it's really been that group.

"We probably got more of them available in the one week this week than we had prior to that, so it was a pretty reasonable team out there tonight.

"I think that team is pretty capable of playing pretty good footy, and being competitive against anybody, which is what the team has been for the past couple of months anyway.

"But I thought we probably had a bit more ability, offensive talent, in the 22 tonight."

Matthews said the next challenge for his side would be to string together consecutive wins – something that has eluded it so far this year – with a triple-hit of Gabba matches coming up against St Kilda, North Melbourne and Fremantle.

"We've been going loss, win, loss, win, so we've got to string some wins together if we want to make anything of the year," he said.

"We seemed like we got through the game unscathed. We had a lot of players available that weren't available last round and, from that point, we go and play some games at home.

"Playing games at home doesn't guarantee a win; it just means we don't have to jump on a plane and the opposition do."

Matthews was pleased with his side's performance against the Blues, despite the fact it trailed off somewhat after building a match-winning lead in the opening term.

"You can always ask for more," he said.

"We won by six goals, and if we wanted to do that before we came, we would have taken it.

"Games tend to be won in patches, most games, when you look back at them. Our really good quarter was our first quarter.

"We were OK after that, but that's where the margin was created."

He also said it was satisfying to see Jonathan Brown lift his form to boot six goals, considering co-forward Daniel Bradshaw has been largely running the attacking show for the past seven weeks.

"The Bradshaw/Brown front pairing has been good for us, but it doesn't mean they're going to kick six for us on the same night," he said.

"It tends to be one will get it a bit more than the other, and tonight it was Jonathan's turn. I thought he was really good."

He then took time to applaud the 32-disposal, three-goal game Johnstone put together, after publicly challenging the one-time Demon to lift his game last month.

"All I said is he's capable of being better, and [tonight] I thought he was best on ground," Matthews said.

"That's what I think he's capable of doing. People took that as a criticism, and all I said was with what he was producing, I thought he was able to produce better.

"That is the level he's capable of and we got that tonight, and that was really gratifying."