Brisbane coach Michael Voss paid tribute to his younger players after the Lions emerged from a tough AFL pre-season with their first win of the year - a 29-point triumph over highly-rated Melbourne at Princes Park on Saturday.

Three goals to the ageless Luke Power and a superb performance from midfielder Daniel Rich steered Brisbane to a 16.11 (107) to 12.6 (78) practice match victory.

Power, who didn't play last week, led the way up forward as his side rebounded from a hammering by the Western Bulldogs the previous week.

And Rich starred with a 24-possession, high-impact game as he ran amok in the midfield alongside Simon Black.

While the trio were clearly Brisbane's best, Voss was thrilled with the cameos provided by some of his younger players as they were rewarded for what has been a difficult pre-season.

As well as the Brendan Fevola and Albert Proud sideshows and sackings, the Lions have received some heavy beatings on-field.

Against an understrength yet disappointing Demons, the Lions were at their strongest personnel-wise in the pre-season and looked much more convincing as a result.

Voss admitted while there had been mitigating factors in his side's stuttering pre-season, he was pleased to see the likes of first-year forward Ryan Lester and onballer Rohan Bewick get something concrete to take away for solid efforts.

"A win was really important for us," Voss said.

"We've been smashed a couple of times ... (but) to be able to get some of (our system) together, get the footy in our hands a bit more, we feel like we've walked away achieving a fair bit out of the day.

"Some of our younger players, we're trying to find out a lot about these players and that's been our primary focus."

The Demons led by four points at quarter-time, but the Lions lifted markedly with an excellent second term to lead by 10 points at the long break.

The Lions were in control for the entire second half against a Demons side without several key players including Brad Green, Jack Grimes and Liam Jurrah.

Addam Maric booted three goals for the Dees, with lively small forward Neville Jetta and midfielders Colin Sylvia and Nathan Jones among their better players.

"We allowed too many uncontested marks to be accumulated against us and we have to fix that before we play our next game," Demons coach Dean Bailey said.

"At the end of the day, the scoreboard tells the story."

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