Brisbane proved beyond doubt it was a force to be reckoned with in this year's NRL finals after blowing Newcastle off the paddock in a stunning 50-6 demolition in Saturday's NRL semi-final at Aussie Stadium.

Stung by a week of criticism after slumping to their seventh straight finals loss last weekend, the Broncos unleashed on a depleted Knights side missing key forwards Danny Buderus and Steve Simpson with four tries either side of the break.

It was a performance that would have the remaining three sides in the competition looking over their shoulders.

The Broncos will now meet the Bulldogs in the first preliminary final at Aussie Stadium next Friday night with minor premiers Melbourne to clash with St George Illawarra the following night at Telstra Stadium.

The Broncos looked on pace to set a whole host of records after claiming a 50-0 lead after 58 minutes before Knights fullback Kurt Gidley went over in the corner with just two minutes left on the clock to see his side avoid the ignominy of the greatest loss in finals history.

"I think we ran into an exceptionally hot team at semi-final time, I certainly wasn't expecting our performance to be as poor but I think they'd be very happy with the way they played," said Knights coach Michael Hagan after his last game in charge of the club before moving to Parramatta next season.

"They were simply outstanding on the night, I don't think we've got too many complaints at this point."

Broncos skipper Darren Lockyer said the relief of securing the club's first finals win since 2002 would give the whole squad a lift.

"We all knew that the footy that we were playing that we could win a finals game," Lockyer said.

"Last week we were a bit off the mark, it was just a matter of getting back to where we were a couple of weeks ago.

"I think there's a lot of relief there that we can give this (the premiership) a fair shake."

The Knights sorely missed Test duo Buderus (suspension) and Simpson (shoulder injury) with the writing on the wall early as the Broncos scored back-to-back tries in the opening 20 minutes.

Another brace before halftime and the match was as good as over, Lockyer crediting his side's stonewall defence rather than rampant attack.

"Although we scored 50 points which would suggest our attack was pretty good, I think our defence was what set up our win for us," Lockyer said.

"Early in that first half we withstood a bit of Newcastle attack and we came up with points at the other end and I think we had the game in the bag at halftime."

The Knights needed to start the second half on fire if they were to be any chance, but when retiring veteran Craig Smith dropped cold a monstrous Lockyer line drop out in his own half, they must have known it wasn't going to be their night.

It instigated a scoring spree in which the Broncos scored four tries in the space of nine minutes.

Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett was afforded the luxury of resting Lockyer for the final 15 minutes of the match.

"Their big game players stood up and found another gear," Johns said.

"We tried not to look at the scoreboard at halftime, we spoke about just trying to play out the whole 80 minutes... when it got to 50 I thought it might have got away.

"I felt sad, I don't think Hages deserves to go out on that note."

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