DAMIEN Hardwick did not mince words following his team’s heavy loss to Brisbane on Saturday night, putting Gold Coast players on notice to improve or risk being dropped.

The visibly frustrated coach said the Suns were “smashed” in the 31-point defeat, describing them as a "middling" team.

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Hardwick spared no-one, highlighting nine players that didn’t lay a single tackle and putting the heat on his misfiring midfield who were again belted around congestion.

"Brisbane taught us a lesson," he said.

"It doesn't matter who's playing in the jumper, you're expected to play to a certain standard.

"I thought our best players didn’t play well enough. You can sit there and hide behind it, but they’ve got to play better and get the job done.

"Then we’re looking for our next tier of players to step up and they didn’t step up.

"We had one or two winners on the night. You’re not going to win too many games of footy like that.

"We just got smashed."

Brisbane kicked five goals from centre clearances, won the overall clearance count by 10, contested possessions by 12, inside 50s by 22, and could have won by an even greater margin if they didn’t squander some gettable shots at goal in the final term.

Matt Rowell (15 disposals) was blanketed by Josh Dunkley, Christian Petracca (20) faded out as the game wore on and Noah Anderson and Touk Miller had solid numbers without a huge impact.

Hardwick said Rowell and the Suns had to figure out a way of freeing up the midfield bull, describing it as "insanity" the way they continued to try the same things to wriggle free of Dunkley.

Lachie Neale (37) couldn’t be slowed down, while Logan Morris beat a handful of defenders on the way to seven goals and a best on ground performance.

"We've got to put it on our guys. Get the job done or next-man-in mentality," Hardwick said.

"I'm really flat. Flat for our supporters, flat for our players, flat for our club.

"We set ourselves for this block of games and we've got a kick in the backside. I'm disappointed, I'm angry, I'm all of those things."

And with Geelong (away), Hawthorn (home) and Fremantle (away) to come in the next three weeks, the 7-5 win-loss record could spiral.

Lachie Weller and Will Graham will be unavailable for some time after both suffered hamstring injuries.

"The reality is we’re a middling side, aren’t we?" Hardwick said.

"We're short of the contenders. We were last year and we're the same place this year.

"We've got to get to work and figure out … what we can do to close that gap. We're well short at the moment.

"It's my job and our job as coaches to figure out how we get the response we’re after. We’ve got to bounce back."

Conversely Brisbane snapped a three-game losing streak in convincing fashion to get its season back on track.

Missing a host of his team’s best players due to injury, coach Chris Fagan said there was a simple approach he gave them heading into the QClash.

"In our history over the past few years, when we've been struggling our way out is to be fearless," he said.

"That was the encouragement all week. I wasn't sure whether it would work or not, but it certainly did.

"So, we focused on that, and we focused on the players bringing their weapons and playing to those. It was a pretty simple theme, but it worked really well."

Fagan said showing more dare in moving the ball helped his team to defend better, conceding just 75 points after three straight games of giving up 100-plus.

"I liked that we were brave enough to do that," he said of the ball movement.

"That's the thing we focused on pretty much all week, was to energise the players and keep the ball in motion and we got a good result out of it.

"The hunger was there to win."