INDISCIPLINE under pressure and a breakdown of its structures were the reasons behind the Brisbane Lions loss to Port Adelaide, according to midfielder Luke Power.

Having battled away manfully for three quarters, the Lions lost their way in the final term before falling to a 48-point loss, as Port kicked six unanswered goals.

Power, a constant ball magnet, was starved of first use of the ball alongside his fellow midfielders as Port took control of the stoppages.

“They got a lot more movement around the stoppages with (David) Rodan, (Peter) Burgoyne, (Danyle) Pearce and the likes, which got us on the move and pulled our structure apart,” Power said.

“We tried man on man and tried to keep our structures, but they’ve got pretty strong ruckman and they were just too good.

“Full credit to Port, they came out and played better footy than us today and they were prepared to fight and we weren’t.”

Power felt the Lions didn’t handle the pressure put on them by Port Adelaide, which in turn led to sloppy ball skills and the chance of claiming a victory.

“You’ve got to keep practising at training and putting yourself under pressure and in game situations.

“We can’t afford to cough the ball up as much as we did because if you turn the ball over it will cost you games and it did today.

“We threw it away and obviously didn’t run it out as hard as they did.”

As a result of their tendency to turn the ball over, the Lions became undisciplined, particularly in the final quarter, highlighted by Jared Brennan’s headbutt on Josh Carr.

Power said his teammates allowed Port to get under their skin and dictate the game, but felt they should have coped better.

“We had a little bit of indiscipline and that’s what Port does to you, but we’ve got to be better than that,” he said.

“We’ve got to keep control of ourselves under pressure and unfortunately we didn’t do that today and we fell apart.”

A key feature of the game was Port’s extra man in defence, a deliberate tactic to thwart the Lions’ dangerous forward line, and Power expects more opposition teams to adopt that approach.

“(Troy) Chaplin did well. He was dropping back and creating two on one against (Jonathan) Brown and (Daniel) Bradshaw and we couldn’t counter it.

“We’ll go back and look at the tape and have to work out strategies because I guess most teams are going to do that when you’ve got two very good full forwards.”