Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan described his team’s crushing 76-point loss to Carlton on Saturday night at Marvel Stadium as his “worst nightmare”.

Not only did the reigning back-to-back premiers get smashed in one of the upset results of the season, but finished the game with one fit player.

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Key quartet Logan Morris (quad/back), Hugh McCluggage (calf), Ryan Lester (shoulder) and Keidean Coleman (concussion) all failed to see out the game.

Coleman will be unavailable for their top-four showdown against Hawthorn at the Gabba next round and the other three will be in varying degrees of doubt as well.

Fagan wasn’t thrilled about potentially making wholesale forced changes to the line-up so close to the finals.

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“Our squad depth has been tested all year,” Fagan said.

“We’ve had up to 15/16 players out at different times. We were just getting some players back and now we seem to be back getting a few injuries.

“At this time of the year you’re trying to get some solidarity and play each week with a similar line-up if you can so you can get good cohesion together.

“So it’s not ideal if you’re changing your side a lot at this point in time.”

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The Lions have been hit particularly hard down back with Dayne Zorko (managed), Ty Gallop (suspension), Darcy Gardiner (hamstring) and Jack Payne (knee) all out and then Lester and Coleman injuring themselves during the match.

The dearth in options forced Eric Hipwood to shift down back, with the 2024 premiership-winning forward looking out of his depth all game.

“He looks vulnerable defensively – they’re getting him on the lead, they’re getting him with movement,” David King said of Fox Footy during a torrid evening that saw Blues talls Brodie Kemp (five goals) and Harry McKay (20 disposals, three goals) feast in attack.

“The Hipwood back experiment is probably over at the end of this game,” former Richmond dual Coleman Medallist Jack Riewoldt added.

“They have to find a different person to fill that hole.”

Eric Hipwood had a difficult evening in an unfamiliar role down back. (Photo by Graham Denholm/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

Hipwood also produced a terrible turnover out of defence to let the Blues in for a Will Hayward goal early in the second quarter.

However, Fagan went into bat for the 28-year old, saying he wasn’t to blame for the Blues’ territory domination.

“There was more to the loss than that,” Fagan said.

“Eric Hipwood doesn’t play in the midfield. We got beaten in the midfield tonight. We lost the supply battle and the backs were under the pump all night long.

“It’s a little hard when you don’t play there every week, but we didn’t have too many alternatives.”

In some better news for the Lions, Zorko and Gardiner should be available to face the Hawks.

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But Fagan insisted he wasn’t “panicking” as a result of the heavy defeat and agreed his men would take confidence from the fact that they won seven matches in a row soon after suffering a similarly massive loss to GWS in Round 11.

“This happens in footy sometimes,” he said.

“Not what we wanted tonight; not ideal. But it’s happened and we’ve just got to respond now.