BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss has renewed his call for a mid season draft to fill the void when players suffer long term injuries during the first half of the year.

The Lions backline has been decimated in recent weeks with the loss of Daniel Merrett (ankle), Joel Patfull (jaw) and most recently Josh Drummond, who injured a calf in Saturday night's six-point loss to Carlton at the Gabba.

“Gee I wouldn’t mind that right now [a mid season draft]. I reckon I would be looking across Australia for a defender right now,” Voss said on Monday.

The Lions coach first submitted a proposal for the concept at the start of the season and he says the topic is worthy of spirited discussion.

Alternatively, Voss would like to see the introduction of substitute players or a cap on rotations at 80, after Drummond left the ground in the first few minutes against the Blues and never returned.

“There is a definite disadvantage to losing a player very early in the game. It puts a tremendous amount of pressure on another group of players which then increases the likelihood of injuries on those guys,” Voss said.

“I know that if one opposition player goes down, I’m ramping up my rotations too because I’m making sure the intensity is right up there so it puts a massive load on the other players.”

Voss says the downside of allowing a substitute player is that bringing a fresh player in, for example at half time, could be a major advantage to that team, but he says the issue of players going down injured has become too great to ignore.

“Over the back half of the year we should be looking at it quite closely,” Voss said.