Craig McRae, as is his custom, remained optimistic after his side's poor showing on Thursday night.
At a ground McRae knows well, having spent his entire playing career in Brisbane, the Lions were breathtaking with ball in hand, moving through the Magpies' fabled team defence with a surgical precision. The Lions toughness in the contest was also something a makeshift Pies midfield could not match.
While giving the necessary plaudits to his superior opposition, the fifth-year coach triaged the areas of his side's game that need work in a succinct manner.
"Honestly I felt like we got outplayed for most of the night. Clearly the scoreboard says that," McRae said.
"Stoppages got away from us, and when you lose territory against this team it makes it really difficult.
"I want to give credit more to them, more than (putting it on) us. I did say to the playing group that there's a lot of stuff right in front of us that we can fix really quickly, and we need to get to work on that.
"It's early in the year - we got a bit of a wake up call on a couple of parts of our game, stoppages (are) clearly one."
McRae praised his opposite number Chris Fagan for his tactical nous in quelling all of the moves McRae tried to make to minimise Brisbane's obvious advantage at stoppages.
"Credit to them; we bring forwards up (to outnumber at stoppages), we put Josh (Daicos) in the midfield in the third quarter, and I thought he gave us something. Tried Jordy (de Goey) in there, sometimes Jordy out (sic). It wasn't through a lack of trying, but the reality is we didn't execute."
Without on-field conductors Nick Daicos and Scott Pendlebury, Collingwood lost all sense of shape and organisation in the midfield, and the Lions ability to spread after winning the ball - which they did far more often than not - was as damaging as has been seen by any club this season.
"They were just swarming to the next contest... The Lions are the best in the business if you don't win the ball, and we didn't win it tonight.
"There were so many times we just didn't execute the structure. Forwards, behind the ball and at the ball - mainly at the ball. They just cleared the ball way too easy for us. Some of that stuff is something we can fix quickly, in terms of structure and support, but then you've got to get to work on that," McRae admitted.
The Lions were also dominant in the air, with McRae disappointed by his backline having their colours lowered by the likes of Oscar Allen, Sam Draper and Logan Morris.
"That's normally one of our great strengths. You look at all of the numbers over the last four years, and we are one of the best in the competition at defending our d50, and tonight, we got exposed."
The Collingwood coach saw Keidean Coleman's mammoth hit on veteran Steele Sidebottom as emblematic of his side's evening.
"He's (Sidebottom) a tough bugger - it was a really good hit. It was sort of symbolic of our night. We didn't play with good method at times.
"Our system in offence was (poor). Credit to the opposition, we just didn't use the ball anywhere near (the level) we're capable of, and that puts a lot of pressure on you.
"We're not using the numbers, and we train these fundamentals every single week - how do we get through traffic? We'll get back to work on those things."
The loss leaves the Pies sitting 2-2 after four matches, with a consequential clash with Fremantle at next weekend's Gather Round, their next opportunity to move ahead on the season's ledger.
The coach expects Scott Pendlebury to return for the clash, putting the veteran back on track to surpass Brent Harvey's games record in early May.
"We've got eight days, and we've got to get to work."
