DROPPED Brisbane Lions onballer Travis Johnstone has travelled to Melbourne as an emergency for Saturday's clash against North Melbourne, even though coach Michael Voss has ruled out any late selection trickery.

The omission of the ex-Demon raised eyebrows on Thursday, but Voss maintained he would remain on the sidelines barring any late mishaps to the selected 22.

"I've spoken to Trav before and we want to be able to get a consistent level of performance out of [him]. We haven't been able to get that across the whole course of the season," Voss said ahead of a light training run at Melbourne's Wesley College on Friday afternoon.

"I'll get the chance to sit down and have a chat to him and explain the whys and wherefores [of my decision]. I haven't really gone into that level of detail yet and probably will over the weekend while he's down here."

Throwing doubt on Voss' assertion was the sight of Jared Brennan receiving treatment on a sore calf that came out of last week's narrow loss to St Kilda.

"He didn't train yesterday so it's probably our first look at him, but once he does a few run-arounds he should be right to go," Voss explained.

"I don't think there's any real concern about the way that he's presented himself. He ran on Thursday and ran pretty well so something extraordinary would have to happen for him not to play.

"Certainly the medical staff aren't worried by it at all."

The Lions have had a light week on the track to recover from the highly physical nature of the stoush with the Saints, with Voss confident his charges were adequately refreshed despite the six-day break.

He was equally convinced that his players weren't suffering any mental hangover after coming so close to toppling the ladder leaders.

"Last week becomes obsolete. It was a good effort, pats on the back and hip-hip-hooray, but the fact is we didn't get the four points," he said.

"The biggest mistake we could make is not coming with our competitive attitude because you know North Melbourne will take you all the way.

"They'll compete right to the end and if we're not willing to come with that at the very start of the game then they'll give us a good, old shellacking so we've got to be careful of that."