ALREADY down their best defender, the Brisbane Lions face the prospect of losing two more of their main men ahead of Friday night's home match against Collingwood.

Ruckman Matthew Leuenberger was taken to hospital after Saturday night's 13-point loss against Carlton to get scans on a dislocated thumb while co-captain Jonathan Brown could face scrutiny from the match review panel.

Either would be a huge loss against the Magpies as the Lions will already be without suspended fullback Daniel Merrett.

Leuenberger went off in the final quarter against the Blues and was rushed straight to the rooms.

"He dashed off to hospital, so that's a wait and see," coach Michael Voss said after the match.

"I couldn't give you an accurate report. I think so (dislocated), but you couldn't quote me."

Brown could find himself in hot water following an incident early in the third quarter where he collected Carlton opponent Michael Jamison with a left forearm to the head.

Voss said he did not see the incident, but Jamison was left holding his jaw for minutes afterwards.

However, Voss's biggest headache could come in the defensive 50 after Joel Patfull was beaten soundly by Jarrad Waite.

Without Merrett, there is no obvious match-up for Magpies hulk Travis Cloke despite the return of youngster Justin Clarke from suspension.

Voss said he would back Patfull to not have two poor games in succession.

"Joel's been so fantastic the way he's defended over a long period of time. If you work on averages, 99 out of 100 (good games) isn't bad," he said.

"He's lost his contest today and next week we have a bigger contest again. That's something he's going to have to learn from, park it and move on."

Voss said the Lions were lucky to remain in the contest until the final minutes, with a wasteful Carlton keeping them close.

The Blues missed a host of set shots and failed to bury the wobbly Lions.

"Across the night, for three quarters at least, they managed to get on top in most areas," Voss said.

"We probably played a (good) quarter and a half, but hung in there. Really it was probably Carlton giving us the chances to hang in the game and unfortunately at the back end we weren't good enough to finish it off."

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