Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett says he would put a healthy roster above a home final after the Broncos stayed within sight of the NRL top four with a 36-22 win over the Bulldogs at ANZ Stadium.

Brisbane downplayed the significance of the battle for home ground advantage in the first week of the finals after the Broncos again perched themselves one point behind the fourth-placed Sydney Roosters heading into the last round of the regular season.

To move into fourth the Broncos would need to beat Newcastle on Friday night and have the Roosters go down to St George Illawarra - the two matches being played simultaneously at Suncorp Stadium and the SFS respectively.

"Getting there healthy, that's the number one priority," Bennett said after watching his side cruise to a comfortable win over the Bulldogs.

"Best players on the park. Anything else after that's a bonus.

"We're pretty comfortable if we're not at home, we just want to be playing well, injury free.

"Friday night will challenge us enormously, we'll have a pretty good idea where we're at Friday night one way or the other."

The Broncos hardly got a challenge against the Bulldogs, despite the home side running out to a shock 12-0 lead.

Used to playing in front of 30,000-plus crowds back home, the Broncos admitted they struggled to get up for the game in front of a paltry 7685 fans braving the rain in the 80,000 seat venue, and it was almost as if they needed the early adversity to spark into action.

"Our start indicated we weren't really into it, didn't have the right mindset," Broncos skipper Darren Lockyer said.

"The atmosphere's not real good out there, but if we want to be a good team we need to overcome any sort of situation and just play good footy."

Lockyer took it upon himself to get the Broncos into stride, the veteran five-eighth throwing the final pass for Sam Thaiday and Justin Hodges to score the first of their doubles for the afternoon.

Halves partner Peter Wallace followed suit to send David Stagg over for an 18-12 halftime lead before an errant pass from Andrew Ryan gave Hodges an opportunity to go over for his second.

"We made errors and they capitalised pretty well," said Bulldogs coach Steve Folkes, who took charge in his last home game with the club.

"We probably kept fighting the full 80 minutes and we weren't too far away in the end."

Folkes and hooker Corey Hughes were given emotional send offs after the game before a small smattering of spectators, but Folkes said it was important his side refocused on the club's final game against Canberra.

A loss to the Raiders would leave the Bulldogs with the wooden spoon, their first purely performance placed last place finish since 1965 after they also collected the honour in 2002 when they were deducted 37 competition points for rorting the salary cap.

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