BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss remains upbeat about his side's future despite Saturday's 42-point loss to Hawthorn, saying his team has strong character and a bevy of emerging leaders.

The Lions lost their 12th game for the season on Saturday at Aurora Stadium in Launceston after being blown away by the Hawks in the final quarter.

But Voss remains optimistic about the immediate future, and says he wants to emulate the success of West Coast - which remains a likely finals contender after winning last year's wooden spoon - with his young group.

"The thing you've got to be able to build on is team character, and I reckon we've got plenty of that," he said, after the game.

"I think they've shown that through the year when they probably haven't had a lot of encouragement with direct results.

"The fact they just keep coming … if that's the foundation to build a team on, ours is pretty good one and I think our group is showing that."

When talking about the Lions and character, it's hard not to mention captain Jonathan Brown, who overcame tight checking from Hawks' defender Josh Gibson and a loose man in defence to kick three goals on Saturday.

Brown's performance saw him become the Brisbane Lions' greatest goalkicker, overtaking former teammate Daniel Bradshaw's tally of 496 by two.

Brown also moved into fourth position on the merged club's all-time goalkicking list behind Alastair Lynch (633 goals with Fitzroy, the Bears and the Lions), Jack Moriarty (626 goals with Fitzroy) and Bernie Quinlan (576 goals with Fitzroy).

"He's an enormous leader. I could probably keep talking about Browny; you guys speak about him enough," Voss said.

"He's important and even his approach to the way he changed up his game for the better of the team are all the thing you want to see from your skipper.

"The goals, yes, he's been great, but as a coach when you have your captain who's been echoing your sentiments and trying to push to the playing group what you're trying to achieve as a coach, and coach out on the field, it’s a really important attribute to have in your leadership group.

"I played with him, I admired him, and I've come to coach him and I admire him, and nothing will change there."

Voss said although Brown and Simon Black's on-field leadership was invaluable, he was more pleased with the emergence of some of his young players in leadership roles.

"It's something we weren't able to turn around earlier in the year but I think we're starting to turn it around now," he said.

"More and more players are starting to put their hand up for ownership of this team and that's really pleasing to see.

"It's been a lot of our emerging players that are starting to do it, which has been fantastic."

Voss admitted the Lions were "outplayed" by the Hawks and he had plenty of things to focus on; the major one being good ball use over an entire game.

But he said their fight and desperation to stay in the contest was hard to criticise.

"It's something I can't fault our group every single week. It's nice when you come to the footy and you don't have to worry about whether your group really wants to have a go," he said.

"That's what I feel like at the moment as their coach; that they're getting themselves ready to the contest and that's the really pleasing aspect of what they're producing at the moment.

"On the other side, we're teasing a little bit too. We're a smidgen away from having a really good break-through win, and we're sort of not really having that consistency over the long game to get us the result.

"Little things hurt us from time to time, but that’s something we've got to be able to develop and grow as a group."