Brisbane coach Chris Fagan insists another painful MCG defeat won't hinder the Lions' premiership prospects in September.
After leading by 27 points early in the final quarter, the Lions were mown down by Melbourne on Friday night as Jake Melksham slotted the winning goal for the Demons with 30 seconds remaining in the thrilling 16.9 (105) to 16.8 (104) victory.
Brisbane dominated the second and third terms, booting 12.4 to 6.2, but were made to pay for poor opening and fourth quarters.
It leaves the Lions with just one win from their past 15 trips to the MCG, with the solitary victory there coming in last year's semi-final against Melbourne.
But the Lions were then thrashed by Geelong in the preliminary final at the same venue seven days later.
Brisbane's last home-and-away triumph at the MCG came back in round 21, 2014, with Dayne Zorko the only current player to feature in that match.
The Lions were upset by rebuilding Hawthorn in round 13 in their only other match at the home of the grand final during the home-and-away season.
Fagan was left disappointed by the missed opportunity but believed they could still salute at the MCG in finals.
"Probably the hoodoo leaves on," Fagan said.
"Unfortunately, it wasn't that far away from not living on, but it does.
"So we just have to take that feedback and we'll try and do a better job the next time that we play here.
"I'm not a great believer that what happens (against Melbourne), if we're good enough to get the finals and we have to play here again, that it's going to be on our mind. I think we can deal with that.
"We were close tonight. It's about as close as you can get but we didn't quite get there."
Brisbane lost both home-and-away matches at the MCG last season, before stunning the Demons at the same ground in the second week of the finals.
Their loss against Richmond in round 20 had eerie similarities to this defeat to Melbourne.
Against the Tigers last year, they led by as much as 42 points, but were run over and lost a thriller.
Fagan said he would need to watch the replay to see what more the Lions could have done to stop Melbourne's late momentum.
"It's hard to cop because we did a lot right, but at the end of the day I'd say we didn't deserve to win, necessarily," Fagan said.
"We'll take learnings from it and we'll go and have a look at the last five minutes and how we handled that.
"Melbourne are a good footy side and when you play them here, you've got to do a lot of things right to win."
The Lions will likely regain star midfielder Josh Dunkley (calf) for next Saturday's crunch clash with Geelong at the Gabba.
