BRISBANE coach Chris Fagan isn't concerned by Thursday night's "shocker" against Collingwood, saying the 52-point defeat won't hurt Brisbane.
The Lions dropped their first match of 2025 to the Magpies in front of a packed Gabba, losing all four quarters in a performance Fagan called lacklustre.
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They were smashed at clearance (36-26), generated just 37 inside 50s, and unlike four times this year where they have overturned big deficits, there was no comeback in sight against Craig McRae's disciplined team.
Fagan said Collingwood was more desperate, more energetic and attacked the ball with more vigour than his team.
He wasn't going to overreact to one poor showing, though.
"There was a lot of things we didn't do well," Fagan said.
"I look at this group, and they've won 19 of their last 21 games.
"You're going to have a bad day at some point in time. We haven't had one for a long time.
"We had a shocker and Collingwood played really well, all credit to them.
"It was a combination of they played very, very well, and we were off our game. We had a lot of our really good players played below their normal levels and it was just a lacklustre performance, but uncommon for us, you'd have to say."
Fagan said it was disappointing to be so flat on such a big stage and pondered whether back-to-back interstate travels followed by a five-day break hindered his team.
"We've got to cop it on the chin and learn from it. It probably won't hurt us," he said.
"If you said to me at the start of the season we'd be five wins and one loss after six games, I would take that. The ball's in our court to respond next week."
One key problem the Lions could not solve was how to stop Collingwood wizard Nick Daicos, who finished with 38 disposals that included eight clearances and a goal.
He set up victory with a dominant first half and was clearly the game's best player.
"We decided to have more of a team focus on him, which didn't work in the first half," Fagan said.
"Then we put Jarrod Berry to him in the third quarter, that didn't work either. Nothing we really tried to do worked on Nick, he was fantastic."
McRae was just as glowing of his superstar midfielder, saying he and brother Josh – who gathered 30 disposals of his own – were "remarkable players".
"They had 68 touches between them, but it's more the metres gained," he said.
"Over 1,000 metres gained from both those players. I had a chat to Nick a couple of weeks ago when Dan (Houston) was out (suspended) and said we wouldn't mind you just playing a little bit more back and keep those metres gained that Dan gives us."
Collingwood will have skipper Darcy Moore available for next Friday's Anzac Day clash against Essendon despite being subbed out early in the last quarter.
Moore copped an accidental knee from teammate Jeremy Howe that split his ear and required stitches, but McRae said he would be fine.
He said finding a different way to beat Brisbane, through scoring from clearances and stifling the premier's ball movement, would give his team great confidence and belief.
"There's evidence. We talk constantly about evidence, here it is, here's some facts, look at that and we eat it up and go reproduce that," McRae said.
