LEIGH Matthews has declared his total confidence in Senior Coach Justin Leppitsch and the Brisbane Lions administration saying the Club’s on-field woes are instead the result of a generation of recruiting mistakes.

"The three pillars of any footy club are to draft well, get the right people to coach, manage and develop the talent and the third is to keep the talent so you get the benefits of the development when the players mature,’’ Matthews - Lions Deputy Chairman and Director of Football - told The Courier-Mail.

“On those pillars we have had a really bad generation of drafting and retention.

"But in terms of the people we have brought into the club, we feel like we have the right coach and the right CEO, we have faith in those people.’’

Mathews told The Courier-Mail that becoming competitive was the immediate focus for the coaches and players.

But the long-term solution was to get their drafting and player retention right.

Matthews believes Brisbane’s problems are an accumulation of an entire generation of poor drafting and player retention - and admits some of it started under his watch.

He has presented a document to the Lions Board outlining how few players drafted into the club are still on the list.

Matthews said that of the drafts since the Lions’ last premiership, four top-10 draft picks in Mitch Clark, Lachie Henderson, Jared Polec and Billy Longer have left.

They are also thin on the 25-30 year age group which should be the core of their side.

Jed Adcock, Matthew Leuenberger, Daniel Rich and Jack Redden are the only remaining players of the 30 drafted in the period between 2003 and the 2009 off-season.

The pre season and rookie drafts in that period were more successful netting stars Tom Rockliff and Pearce Hanley.