BRISBANE Lions coach Leigh Matthews has admitted that finding a way for his side to string together consistent performances has taken precedence over considering a possible top-four spot.

The Lions suffered their second defeat in as many outings, falling to an impressive Essendon by 37 points at Telstra Dome on Saturday night.

"We’d like to win the premiership, but at the moment what’s realistic is can we find a way to string together a game or two," he said.

"It’s (a top four spot) not out of range but realistically we’ve lost a couple of games to teams that aren’t probably going to be in the final eight, so I don’t know why anyone should be getting too focused on the top four."

Matthews praised the ability of the in-form Bombers to take their chances in a contest, which turned into a shoot-out with 42 goals kicked.

"Whoever was getting the ball was scoring," he said. "They were fantastic. They kicked 24.6 off the boot … every time they went forward they were having a shot and most times they were kicking goals.

"When we got a bit of control of the footy, we were doing the same thing so it was a bit of an exhibition game really in terms of scoring."

Matthews expressed his disappointment at his side's defensive efforts all over the field.

"Our defensive mechanisms, we were sort of disappointed about tonight … the ability to stop the opposition scoring was clearly poor tonight although they did take their chances," he said.

The Lions also have injury concerns with ruckman Matthew Leuenberger damaging his knee cartilage, midfielder Simon Black taking a heavy hit to the shoulder and star forward Jonathan Brown pulling up sore.

"He (Brown) got a knock on his back," Matthews said. "He got crunched in a big pack so he was a bit hobbly … we’re not sure what he’s done but he was struggling… he certainly was sore though."