BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss has a similar feeling in the lead-up to Saturday night's home match against Adelaide as he had before upsetting West Coast by two points in round 10.

For a period after that upset, he Lions were in finals contention but have spiralled out of the race with five losses from their past six matches.

At the same time, Adelaide has soared into second place.

After a particularly disappointing past three weeks where the Lions have lost to West Coast, Richmond and Carlton by an average of 10 goals, Voss feels the wheel is turning.

He said training and preparation had rivalled the build-up to the shock win over the Eagles in June, highlighted by James Polkinghorne's late torpedo goal from 60m.

"If you marry up our preparation going into that game, it was spot on for a few weeks but we couldn't quite get a win," Voss said.

"One quarter was being blown out over the previous couple of weeks. Over the last couple of weeks I'd say the training has been the equal of (that period) and in some ways the games have gone the same way.

"We've lost a quarter here and there and sides have got away from us. Certainly the expectation is we can compete strongly against them."

Voss said in hindsight the round 16 loss to St Kilda was a hammer blow for the Lions.

They entered that match with a 6-8 record and led for most of the night before being over-run late to lose by 13 points.

It has been downhill from there despite a scrappy win over Gold Coast the following week.

"As a coach I under-estimated just how much of a psychological impact it had after the loss to St Kilda," Voss said.

"We built ourselves up for that game and didn't quite get over the line. The focus for this group is we've got unfinished business.

"We've got some things we're still yet to achieve in the season to consolidate our progress as a footy team.

"We have to make sure we finish out and follow through on what we said we'd do at the start of the season."

Voss said rebounding half-back Josh Drummond would be available to play next week after being left out for a second straight match with soreness.

He said the injury-prone 28-year-old needed to rest after a block of six weeks that had not included much training.

Michael Whiting covers Brisbane Lions news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_mikewhiting

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL