The stats sheet was damning enough but Brisbane Lions coach Michael Voss' biggest disappointment from the 93-point AFL loss at Geelong couldn't be measured on paper.

While stopping short of saying his players gave up against the Cats, Voss dared them to be "man enough" to turn it around against Essendon at the Gabba on Saturday night.

Some may not get the chance.

Voss said "a lot of players" should be nervous before the round six team was announced on Thursday.

"You go through the numbers and it can be plain embarrassing," Voss said on Monday.

"You can go into all that detail but there's this attitude and intensity that is harder to measure... that you need to bring to every game...(and) it's critically important in the outcome of the game.

"That (intensity, attitude against Geelong) was not acceptable.

"Hopefully we are at a stage where we can challenge each other on that, be big enough and man enough to be able to take that and turn it around very quickly.

When asked if defender Jason Roe should be nervous, Voss said: "There are a lot of players that should be sitting there thinking about how they played on the weekend.

"To single one player out would be wrong.

"You want a certain level of effort. Some players might feel the brunt of that (lack of effort against the Cats)."

The stats sure were damning - Geelong had 65 hit outs to 16, 93 marks to 49, 490 disposals to 257 with 308 of the Cats' possessions uncontested.

Voss said he forced himself to sit down for another viewing of the Cats mauling on Sunday night.

"That's when you look back as a coach and ask `did we communicate well, were our plans wrong?' - we just didn't execute.

"Whether that comes down to having too much respect for the opposition, or being in awe of the opposition, I'm not too sure.

"I've still seen plenty of encouraging signs for this group, but then you get that on the weekend you think `that's not us, that's not the way we play and that is not this group of players'."

It was the first blowout of Voss's four-game coaching career.

"I think we will find out this week how much it hurt them, how much they really want to turn it around and what they want to get out of the year," he said.

In a further blow, the Lions lost midfielder Bradd Dalziell for up to three months with a knee injury.

Voss was already reeling from the recent loss of ruckmen Jamie Charman (ankle, up to six weeks) and Matthew Leuenberger (knee, up to three months).

"I wouldn't say we are in a precarious position. We have some young guys that are playing some good football in the reserves," he said.

"Sam Sheldon and Matt Austin are playing very well. They may get their opportunity.

"But we haven't spoken about that yet - we are still licking our wounds from yesterday."

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