WITH five minutes left against Gold Coast on Saturday night, Michael Voss thought his Brisbane Lions were out on their feet.

They trailed by a point, and were lucky to be that close after the Suns had the ball camped in their forward 50 for 20 minutes, but could only register a paltry 1.8 for the quarter.

When the Lions did eventually get the ball forward, 22-year-old vice-captain Tom Rockliff stood tall.

He took a contested mark in the goalsquare over Sun Jarrod Harbrow and gave the Lions a lead they would not relinquish.

"I don't know where the guys found it in the end," Voss said.

"With five minutes to go I thought we were pretty cooked. There were some big efforts. Tom Rockliff, that's what you want your leaders to do, he lifted and was able to score the goal."

Rockliff said in the dying minutes the message came out to move forward, so he headed straight to the square.

The midfielder has shown this season he is a skilful one-on-one option deep in the forward, kicking 15 goals in 16 games, including hauls of two or more goals on five occasions.

"I think it was a stoppage or a long kick in, and Polks (James Polkinghorne) roved it and snapped it to the top of the square and I had Harbrow on me and lucky enough it fell in my arms," Rockliff said post-match.

"We knew if we could get the footy forward we had the blokes to kick goals down there.

"All we needed was to get the footy in our forward half for a bit and put a bit of pressure on them and hopefully we'd get a goal or two which we ended up getting."

It was a mixed night for Rockliff who not only kicked the crucial goal and had 29 important disposals, but also sustained a compound dislocation to his right middle finger.

"There was a bit of bone sticking out, but the doc popped it back in and taped it up and I got back out there," he said.

"I should be fine for next weekend."

The Lions head to Perth next up to take on West Coast and Rockliff said they would need to improve dramatically from the performance against the Suns.

"I think we only had three tackles at quarter-time and 10 at half-time and that's not the way we play.

"I think we've shown that this year, if we play like that we're going to get beaten more times than not.

"We want to be known for our pressure and we just didn't bring it early on.

"I think last year we would have folded but this year we fought it out which was good. I think the boys do take a positive out of that, but in saying that, also we didn't play the way we wanted for most of the night."

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