Brisbane Lions coach Michael Voss says his side needs to focus on contested football if it is to gain its first ever win over the Gold Coast Suns on Saturday night.

With the Lions and the Suns sitting in 15th and 16th positions respectively, Saturday’s game not only has pride and bragging rights on the line but the opportunity for the Lions to gain some breathing room as both sides are separated on percentages alone.

“What you want to be able to do is emulate what does succeed in a grand final if you’ve got that vision of the future, and certainly a contested game style has got to be up there and that’s something we want to be able to introduce,” Voss said.

“Last time we got really beaten in the midfield badly and that’s an area we’ve got to apply some attention to for the weekend because if the same thing happens and we don’t end up with the ball inside 50 enough times clearly the same result will happen.”

Voss also denied revenge was the motivation behind his side’s performance this weekend and that he had told his players to play with more aggression.

“I think what you want is the contest to be completely even and fair within the parameters.

“No one ever wants it to be anything else but you do respect a healthy contest and if that’s [aggression] what happens it certainly is never promoted from coaches.

“We like to be able to have hard, physical contests and you want to be able to have your eye on the ball.

“When that happens there’s always going to be that little bit of spitefulness associated to that so that’s just part of the contest.

“What we should be coaching is always to be able to go for the footy and that’ll always be our focus.”