The Lions have been the feel-good story of the competition this year, winning 16 games on their way to a second-place finish and their first finals campaign since 2009.

But after a 47-point loss to Richmond at the Gabba last Saturday, the Lions are staring down the barrel of a straight sets exit unless they can bounce back against the Giants.

While hopeful of winning through to a preliminary final against Collingwood, Fagan says all the Lions' progress won't be undermined if their season ends this weekend.

"It depends how you play in the finals. They're very hard games to win," Fagan said.

"The team we came up against last weekend is a very experienced finals team. The Giants have been there for four or five years now, so we understand that but it's all about how you play.

"You want to win, yes you do and you'd rather win a final than go out in straight sets but in all honesty you've got to judge our team's performance on the effort and competitive nature of it.

"On the weekend I thought we were great in that regard. That's the first time in 10 years that we've actually had more shots on goal in a game against Richmond than they did.

"We did a lot right, we just quite didn't finish off our chances."

Fagan admits he has a headache working out who comes in to replace Mitch Robinson.

The hard-nut winger was ruled out on Monday with a hamstring injury and finding a replacement is not clear cut.

Fagan, however, denied his team would be vulnerable to being outmuscled by a physical Giants outfit without Robinson's aggression.

"We're a tough team. We just don't rely on Mitch Robinson to be tough," Fagan said.

"That's a reputation that we've earned this year and I think it's pretty widely accepted that when we play, we play hard.

"The guy that comes in will just play as hard as he can and I'm sure we'll bring our best effort on the weekend."

Australian Associated Press