The Lions won contested possessions (129-113) and clearances (42-25) against the Blues, but all-too-familiar skill errors were the root cause of the Lions' 38-point loss to Carlton on Saturday.

Dominating contested possession and clearances, Assistant Coach Murray Davis conceded the Lions had kicked themselves out of the game early.

“These are all the controllables that we’ll continue to work on,” Davis told LionsTV for the Vero Coaches Wrap.

“We’re aware of it – you would have seen Jono Freeman hit the post and Schache who is a great set shot for goal but just misses on this occasion.

“It really allows the opposition to get their game up and running. We’ll continue to put time into our goal kicking routine work as well but the set shots are something you can control.”

The Lions scored just 1.7 in the first half against Carlton. They had created as many front-half turnovers as the Blues but had not been able to convert them into enough scoring opportunities.

“After all our hard work early on we were just really disappointed to let Carlton in with some soft goals that really got their game going.

“We won the second half but the game was really lost in that first half.”

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