BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss was at a loss to explain his team's lacklustre first quarter and outclassed midfield following Saturday night's 58-point loss to Collingwood at the Gabba.

For the third straight week, the Lions gave up a huge head-start against a high quality opponent as the Magpies slammed on the first five goals and never looked back.

Two weeks ago Geelong kicked four unanswered goals in the first quarter on the way to a 38-point win and last week Essendon kicked the first four en route to a comfortable 67-point victory.

Voss was most critical of his young midfield that was torn apart by Collingwood trio Steele Sidebottom (35 disposals), Dane Swan (34) and Scott Pendlebury (33).

"How easy they got through midfield was probably the major talking point," Voss said.

"Plus we've got to be cleaner with the footy and that's just stating the bleeding obvious really isn't it?

"Their really good players around the ball were far too good.

"We weren't able to secure the ball, use the footy or get our hands on it enough to be able to hurt them the other way.

"Our structure just got pulled apart by the ... pressure of not getting our hands on the ball often enough."

Collingwood won the overall disposals 444-310, the clearances 40-31 and capitalised with a landslide 66-38 inside 50 count.

Much of the damage was done in the first term as the visitors established a match-winning 27-point lead.

"Early in the season our first quarter was our best quarter," Voss said.

"No, I can't really say why that is (poor starts). I think where we sit right now, seven rounds in, we've played four teams with top-four qualities and in those games we've got a real experience of what we've got to do to get ourselves to the next level.

"There's no real short answer but we've got to make sure in our training we have to train at an intensity where we're testing what that looks like."

Rebounding defender Josh Drummond said losing so heavily against the top echelon teams was not sitting well with the Lions.

"There's no boys in there kidding themselves, we've got a long way to go to get where we want to," Drummond said.

"There's no doubt it's a sombre mood after the game when you've had a tough loss like that.

"I don't think you can put a timetable on it. I think we were hoping our performances would have been better the last few weeks but we'll look forward to the next challenge. The important thing is we improve and keep closing that gap."

Michael Whiting covers Brisbane Lions news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_mikewhiting

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs