Brisbane coach Michael Voss says the Lions have no cause to enter a horror stretch of AFL games with any confidence.

The injury-hit club's terrible run of form extended to nine losses from their past 10 games with Thursday night's limp 18.12 (120) to 9.11 (65) defeat against Carlton at Etihad Stadium.

Brisbane were 13 points ahead at the first change, but were outscored 16.8 to 5.6 from that point, Voss admitting that when opposition teams applied serious pressure, the Lions were currently unable to handle it.

"It seems we haven't got a lot of resistance at the moment, I must say," Voss said.

"We're quite brittle when it comes to being able to finish off games at the moment, so it certainly doesn't seem to be a thick band of (resistance) to be able to rely on, when it cracks it seems to shatter pretty quick."

He said his players were failing in the fundamentals of the game, such as being able to win their share of marking or ground level contests for the ball, or make tackles stick when their opponents won it.

Currently on a 5-9 record and almost out of the finals hunt, things are about to get even harder, as Brisbane face St Kilda, Hawthorn and Geelong in the next three rounds.

Voss said even if he broke down the match against the Blues into specific aspects, or individual contests, he could draw nothing from it which suggested they deserved to enter that daunting stretch with confidence.

"I don't think you go into it with any confidence at all," he said.

"Where you get confidence from is the fact that you get some evidence.

"... At the moment you're scraping the bottom of the barrel to be able to draw out any positives, that's unfortunate, but that's something we're in as a club.

"We've got to face the next month and it's going to be a tough month, but we've got to face them, there's no hiding." The one bright piece of news was that Voss expects forward Brendan Fevola to return against the Saints, after missing the Carlton clash with a groin injury.

But fellow star marking target Jonathan Brown is not expected back until at least the following game.

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