BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss said his team had to minimise its mistakes ahead of round one after a sloppy 15-point loss to Richmond at the Gold Coast Stadium on Friday night.

The Lions turned the ball over too often in the 12.13 (85) to 11.4 (70) loss but still had a chance late in the contest after a final-quarter comeback.

Richmond extended its lead at every break before the Lions booted the first four goals of the final term to draw within six points, before a Nathan Brown snap steadied the Tigers.

Daniel Bradshaw played a lone hand up forward, kicking five goals, while Michael Rischitelli, Jed Adcock and Luke Power all worked hard.

But it was the Lions' delivery forward that most concerned their coach.

"We were unable to get the ball forward with any real penetration,” he said.

“We were pretty sloppy with the ball. When we turned it over we fumbled the ball, mishandled and Richmond scored 22 times from our mistakes and that's an enormous amount.

“In our profession you can't afford to fumble or miss targets and when you've got a side like that who are very precise, they were able to maximise and realistically they should have put us away earlier.”

Voss said he was pleased with the final quarter comeback, but insisted his team needed to work harder in the first half to stay in touch.

He said it was difficult to find a small forward partner to work alongside the one-two punch of Bradshaw and captain Jonathan Brown.

“Certainly we haven't been able to retain the ball in our forward 50, the ball's coming out far too easy so we need to rectify that,” he said.

“I just thought we looked flat footed and weren't pro-active but in the last quarter we got on our bike and pushed our way through contests and imposed ourselves on the contest and as a result we started to score.”

He said losing three straight games in the pre-season was not ideal, but not the end of the world either.

While Jared Brennan will miss round one with a quad injury, Voss said Daniel Merrett, Jamie Charman, Ash McGrath, Tom Collier and Simon Black would all be available.

Richmond    3.4    7.6    10.9    12.13 (85)
Brisbane Lions    3.1    5.2    6.4    11.4  (70)

GOALS
Richmond: Brown 3, Morton 2, Schulz 2, Cousins, Moore, Riewoldt, Bowden, Tuck.
Brisbane Lions: Bradshaw 5, Drummond 2, Brown, Dalziell, Johnstone, Stiller.

BEST
Richmond: Richardson, Schulz, Deledio, Cousins.
Brisbane Lions: Bradshaw, Drummond, Adcock, Power.

Injuries
Richmond: Foley (lower leg).
Brisbane Lions: Nil.

Umpires: S Grun M James S Wenn.

Crowd: 4369 at Carrara Stadium.