BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss isn’t giving up on his hopes of playing finals this season despite Sunday's nine-point loss to Port Adelaide putting them three wins out of the eight.
The Lions somehow managed to remain in the contest at AAMI Stadium despite losing most key performance indicators including clearances, contested possessions and inside 50s.
Voss said he was proud of the way his players fought it out in tough, windy conditions and that he'd continue to fight alongside them for the rest of the season.
"This side doesn't give up so neither will I," Voss said of a highly unlikely finals berth.
"The obligation for us is to see out the season strong.
"Since the halfway mark we've made some huge gains within our group so we're going to continue to emphasise what they are and continue to build.
"I'm pleased with the direction the team's heading, I'm pleased with some of the development of some of our players and we've just got to keep backing that in and we'll get there."
Voss said the game was lost for his side in the opening half's red time.
In time-on in the first and second quarters the Power booted 3.5 to 0.1.
The coach conceded an overall period of five minutes cost the Lions the game.
"Probably three minutes in the back end of the first quarter and two minutes in the back end of the second quarter – they kicked multiple goals in those two small periods of time and we weren't able to get any scores ourselves," he said.
"That was probably the defining difference in the end."
The Lions were hurt late in the game by a contentious umpiring decision in which Daniel Merrett coughed up possession deep in defence after being called to play on.
Merrett turned to kick but stopped because the Power's Angus Monfries appeared to be illegally within his protected five-metre zone without a direct opponent.
Chad Wingard's resulting goal put the Power up by 10 points with just over seven minutes to go.
Voss labeled it only a "small moment" in the game but admitted his thought it was the wrong decision.
"I'll have to go back and check the vision, but I'm just hoping Monfries was somewhere in the vicinity of one of 'Roger's' (Merrett) teammates," he said.
"Otherwise he was within the five metre area so that'll be an interesting one.
"My first instinct was 'what was Monfries doing standing there?'"
Voss' counterpart Ken Hinkley had a vastly different take on the incident.
The victorious coach was adamant the umpire made the right decision in calling play on.
"I think [Merrett] went, I think he took off," Hinkley said.