Brisbane captain Jonathan Brown seething after heavy loss to Richmond

LIONS captain Jonathan Brown has savaged Brisbane's performance against Richmond, labelling the 48-point loss as ''embarrassing".

Jonathan Brown

LIONS captain Jonathan Brown has savaged Brisbane's performance against Richmond on Saturday night, labelling the 48-point loss as ''embarrassing".

Brisbane fought back from a 45-point deficit to close to within 14 points early in the first quarter only to let the Tigers kick six unanswered goals to comfortably claim the battle of the big cats.

Brown was one of Brisbane's best with four goals, nine marks and 14 touches to keep the Lions in the contest but was bitterly disappointed at the club's recovery session today, delivering a few home truths about the dramatic fadeout.

"That's not acceptable. To walk away and loss by 50-odd points after getting within 14 points, is a pretty embarrassing effort to be honest. . . we just stopped which was very disappointing. . . it's just not good enough,'' Brown said.

"We have to have a real look at ourselves and step up to the plate, not roll over and say this is too hard. We've got to show our character.

"Showing the will to fight, we haven't been doing that enough as a playing group when things get tough.

"The only thing that people see and the only thing that matters is the two hours on game day.

"We didn't deserve to win. It was an inconsistent effort. Our pressure was fantastic the first 10 minutes of the fourth quarter but apart from maybe five minutes here and five minutes there, it was very ordinary.

"Our pressure has just dropped away terribly.''

Brown said Brisbane had to improve significantly to be a legitimate finals contender in 2013.

"We want to beat sides that are around us on the ladder and be knocking on the door of the top eight but there's only so much you can talk about it, you've got to go out and do it,'' he said.

"We've got a month of footy to go. We've made this ground this year, to date. But we have to finish the year off strongly otherwise we are going backwards again.

"If we want to go forward and be a future finals team we better start beating those sides around us. Don't worry about the top four sides, they are in a different realm.''

Brown said playing fellow premiership player Simon Black as the sub was a better option than not playing Black at all given the veteran's on-going knee problems.