After an afternoon of bronx cheers and boos at Skilled Stadium, Brisbane key forward Brendan Fevola received strong praise from coach Michael Voss.

Fevola's statistics were not flash as the Lions lost their AFL match to Geelong by 63 points - only one goal for the match, just one handball to halftime, a game total of eight disposals and one mark.

Further emphasising those poor numbers, fellow Brisbane key forward Jonathan Brown managed four goals.

His high-profile, bad-boy status made him a predictable focus for the Cats fans, but Fevola did not drop his bundle.

In particular, Voss noted his willingness to chase opponents right until the end - an individual sign of Brisbane's willingness to work hard at the Geelong fortress.

"He's probably at where most of us are at, really," Voss said.

"We saw some good signs today, those couple of chases he made down the wing, that lifts people around you, it becomes inspiring.

"While he has that effort ... I'd like him to be sitting back and kicking eight goals, doing all those nice things, but it's a little bit about what comes first.

"For us, it's about having the will to see out the game and he wanted to do that."

Voss said he never thought Fevola was "dragging his chain" and noted his opponent was Matthew Scarlett, one of the game's all-time great full-backs.

While the fans and the media are quick to jump on Fevola, his coach was equally prepared to defend him.

"On every line, we have players who are going through a tough period, to pin that on one person would be unreasonable and unfair," Voss said.

"It's exactly what you said - you guys (media) focus on him, so he becomes the talking point and he'll sell the paper tomorrow, but from my end, I don't treat him any differently.

"He's one person - one person doesn't get us out of this, all of us do and maybe we've left it up to one person to do it in the past."

Brisbane have now lost 12 of their past 13 matches and were coming off last week's 75-point hiding against Hawthorn.

But Voss said the Lions still had a mindset of thinking they could win, even though Geelong at home are the AFL's toughest road trip.

"We came with a focus to win ... I could think of nothing worse in a week than turning up and thinking you can't win," Voss said.

"That would be just the worst week of all time."

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