BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss struggled to find a winner from his 22 when he assessed the side's 26-point loss to Richmond on Saturday night at the MCG.

Despite his players' efforts to overcome a 27-point deficit early in the third quarter to hit the front before the term's end, Voss left the ground unhappy with the collective efforts of his winless team.

"I'm not walking away pleased with anyone's efforts today," he said.

"I thought that, yeah, we're getting games into players, but you can't count your games.

"We're here to play AFL football. This is where the big boys play and it's more about our intent. Do we get the right intent? If we don't have the right capability, we've got to get the right intent.

"We didn't get either today."

Youngsters Jack Redden and Tom Rockliff found plenty of the ball while Simon Black managed 34 touches, but even those statistics - or the defensive job Andrew Raines did against Trent Cotchin for most of the night - failed to please Voss.

"As a team collective, we didn't do a good enough job," he said.

"It takes a collective effort to win this game, and we didn't get that today."

The mood in the Lions' rooms was sombre, but Voss said angry words would not help his players recover from their fifth loss this season.

He said a healthy discussion had taken place instead of an old-fashioned bake.

"[We'll] more talk through it. That's what we've got to do. You've just got to make sure you talk through it and express our disappointment," he said.

"They're disappointed, they're hurting. It's just a matter of being able to make sure we can get some things out of it, and reinforces why we have our game strategy and the structure that we do, and why the effort and intent's got to be there for us to be a competitive footy team.

"I think they get that after our discussion."

Mitch Clark struggled to get into the game until he was moved up the ground late in the fourth quarter.

Voss defended his decision to leave Clark, who kicked his only goal in red time of the fourth, in attack for the majority of the game despite his inability to get near the ball.

"We throw around a lot of things trying to get the footy down there," he said.

"They got the footy down inside 50 a fair bit more than us, but we still got a fair look at it.

"Having players down there that can make the most of those opportunities is still what you're after.

"I thought Broc [McCauley] and 'Leuey' [Matthew Leuenberger] were more than capable enough to be able to cover that part of the ground, so we just left him where he was, and then late, we needed to get some ascendency and we didn't feel like we were getting it from the other two at the time."

Matt Maguire was subbed off for Jared Polec in the third quarter, but Voss said it was more to do with Maguire gradually building match fitness than any injury concern.

He also said he wouldn't be concerned if his winless side went in as underdogs against Gold Coast in the first Queensland clash next weekend.

"I don't think we necessarily sit here and say we deserve [to be favourites]," he said.

"But the bookies don't determine the result of the game. We do."