Nervy Brisbane Lions beat Carlton Blues by 30 points in AFL at the Gabba

A punch-drunk Brisbane held off a spirited Carlton to notch a 30-point win in Sunday's battle of the AFL also-rans at the Gabba.

The Lions led by 56 points early in the third quarter after completely dominating the first half, powered by another scintillating performance from Dayne Zorko.

But they went to water as the Blues began to rally, piling on seven unanswered goals to close in on what would have been a club-record comeback.

They got to within 11 points but nervy as they looked, Brisbane found a way to stem the bleeding with long-distance goals from Daniel Rich and Eric Hipwood, then finished the job to prevail 17.10 (112) to 11.16 (82).

"They were always going to come back at us, because they're a proud club," Lions coach Chris Fagan said.

"We'd spent a lot in the first half, our blokes had gone flat out.

"With this young team we've got, they're going to be prone to those lapses. But by and large ... the things we set out to do, we mostly got done."

Although they remain bottom of the ladder, the victory draws them level on 16 points with North Melbourne, who they meet in the final round of the season - putting the Lions in a good position to avoid the wooden spoon.

It was Carlton's fifth loss in a row and while they were glorified training cones for the first two quarters, coach Brendon Bolton was pleased with the fight they showed.

"But ultimately when you give a team that sort of lead, you are playing catch-up," he said

Bolton's decision to allow the in-form Zorko to run free early proved costly.

Held to just 11 possessions by Richmond tagger Dion Prestia last week, the influential Zorko tallied that many in the first quarter alone.

He finished with 26 disposals, five clearances, five tackles and three goals to continue his career-best campaign.

Bolton said he tried to assign a tagger but it made no difference.

But Zorko may come under scrutiny for two off-the-ball incidents in the third quarter - the first a gut-punch to Lachie Plowman before the siren had even sounded, and then a back-handed hit on Sam Petrevski-Seton that gave away a free kick.

While he had a day out, Carlton's Bryce Gibbs touched the ball just once in the first half and was held to eight possessions by Tom Rockliff.