Lions coach Michael Voss has called on his young squad to lift their game to ensure the club reaches its first finals series in five years.

Voss, a triple premiership winning captain with the Lions, said the club could not afford to just rely on experienced hands such as captain Jonathan Brown.

"Our improvement as a team is not going to come from the Browns, the (Daniel) Bradshaws and (Simon) Blacks, they've had two outstanding seasons in the last two years," he told reporters in Cairns.

"We've got to put a lot more of our energies into that next group and be able to get them to stand up and take more responsibility."

The Lions will take on Melbourne in a practice match in Cairns on Friday in the lead up to the AFL season later this month.

Voss said the team was working on improving its consistency after repeatedly choking in the final quarter of games last season.

The club's forwards also needed to focus on kicking goals after narrowly going down to Essendon in a pre-season clash last month.

"We missed a lot of shots, we had a lot of kickable shots which was probably the disappointing part about it, it wasn't like they were so far out that they couldn't be kicked," he said.

"We more than easily could have won the game so we certainly don't want that to transpire into the season so hopefully we'll learn a few things off the back of that game."

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