Origin and Test forward Sam Thaiday is confident Brisbane's young brigade can step up a notch against the Wests Tigers on Friday after stinging criticism of the club's performance against Canberra.

Brisbane have some serious repair work to do against the Tigers after Sunday's 34-16 NRL loss to the Raiders raised questions about some players' attitudes.

"We didn't show up and we got what we deserved," said a candid Thaiday of the performance.

Thaiday, who has played some arduous football in the past few months including two Origins, said the pressure was on the young players to perform - and he was confident they would.

"It's a great honour to put on the Broncos jersey and if they don't fulfil the requirements of a Broncos player, they won't be playing for the Broncos," he said.

Brisbane will be missing a host of stars again with Darren Lockyer, Peter Wallace, Justin Hodges, PJ Marsh, Joel Clinton and Steve Michaels all unavailable.

"All you can do for your team is make sure individually you're on your game," said Thaiday.

"If everyone does that you can put in a good team effort."

It wasn't so much last weekend's scoreline that was disappointing - Brisbane have lost games by much bigger margins than 18 points.

It was the uncharacteristic way they went about their business, especially in the first half when Canberra carved them up so easily.

Brisbane has always prided itself on being a club which rises to the challenge when faced with its annual mid-season Origin character test.

But last weekend that pride and spirit and fight was missing.

Coach Wayne Bennett let his players know what he thought of their effort, or lack of it, against Canberra by not talking to them after the game.

If his cold shoulder treatment doesn't produce the desired results, Brisbane could have serious problems.

The expected return of hooker Michael Ennis (knee), one of several senior players who didn't train on Tuesday morning, would boost Brisbane's stocks against a Tigers side struggling with its own injury problems, especially in the forwards where they were found out against Parramatta.

"It settled down and hopefully I'll have a run on Thursday and see how it is," Ennis said of the injury.

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