SAM Mitchell is remaining calm following Friday night's hiding from Brisbane, saying Hawthorn are a better team than what they showed against the two-time premiers.

Although disappointed by the 67-point loss, the Hawks coach said there was enough to work with and rued some missed opportunities early in the third quarter that could have closed the gap.

Despite the loss, Hawthorn enters the final fortnight of the home-and-away season in third place, two points clear of Brisbane, with Adelaide and Melbourne a further win behind with a game in hand.

Mitchell said his team was "outclassed" by the Lions, who established a match-winning lead with six goals in the second quarter and five in the third.

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"We saw it as an opportunity to compete against the best, and we weren't up to it tonight," he said.

"I think we're better than that. I think we can execute better than that and play to a high level. And we're going to need to.

"We'll review the game, we'll learn, and we'll review it in a in a manner that allows our players to move forward and improve our game.

"We'll lick our wounds, we'll learn our lessons, and we'll be back."

Trailing by 28 points at half-time, Hawthorn had its best period early in the third quarter, but four consecutive behinds wasted their chance to convert territory into points.

Goalless small forward Nick Watson missed an opportunity he would usually bury, as did Dylan Moore who sprayed wide from 50m out directly in front.

When Eric Hipwood blasted a set shot through from 55m, Brisbane steadied the ship and never looked back.

"Reward for effort is important, but from a mentality point of view, we need to be able to perform more consistently than we did across the night," Mitchell said.

"We ended up having a pretty good clearance night (43-32) against a very good clearance team.

"There were some things that come out of the game that you think, 'Okay, that's something we can we can work towards and work with', but realistically, we weren't good enough tonight."

Brisbane coach Chris Fagan was delighted with his team's ability to bounce back from last Saturday's 76-point loss to Carlton, saying it was the Lions' most complete four quarter performance of the season.

He said they put that loss to the Blues "in the bin" early in the week.

"You've just got to remember our players are human. They'd won seven games in a row and had a bad day last week," Fagan said.

"But they've always been a group over the last seven or eight years that have always been able to bounce back after disappointments. 

"You could tell our energy was up from the start, whereas last week it was down, and when our energy is up, we tend to do that well."

Fagan described Kai Lohmann's five-goal haul as a "special" game from his dynamic half-forward, praising his work-rate and tackle pressure.

Brisbane is temporarily in the top four with games against Gold Coast (Gabba) and Collingwood (MCG) to round out its season.

"I think that's probably been our most complete four-quarter performance this year," he said.

"I think we won every quarter on the scoreboard, and we have had a little bit of a tendency to have a lazy quarter, particularly if we're on top in a game. 

"Tonight we pressed home the advantage and came away with a with a good win and a bit of percentage, which might prove important."