Brisbane coach Ivan Henjak has distanced himself from criticism which has fired up the Gold Coast forwards on the eve of Saturday night's NRL qualifying final at Skilled Park.

Comments by former Brisbane captain Gorden Tallis that the Gold Coast forward pack is too small for finals football have reportedly struck a raw nerve with Titans players embarking on the club's first foray into the finals.

They have vowed to shove Tallis's comments back in Brisbane faces but Henjak says neither him nor his players agree with the provocative remarks of their former skipper.

"That didn't come from us," bristled Henjak on Friday, adding he and his players had great respect for the Titans pack.

"We've got tremendous respect for their footy team and for their club and for what they've done in such a short space of time.

"They've become a very successful organisation."

Henjak said the Titans feat in finishing third in the regular season in such a tough, tight competition was "no fluke".

"They would have won that many games and finished where they did if their forwards weren't doing a good job," said Henjak.

"They just play a different style in the forwards to some other teams, they play to their strengths.

"They work exceptionally hard as a unit and they get up in your face.

"You don't have to be a big pack, you just have to work hard as a unit and be aggressive."

Titans defensive coach Trevor Gillmeister, one of the games smallest but most feared forwards, took issue with Tallis who was a tall rampaging ball runner.

"Size is just a mindset, it's not an issue," Gillmeister said on Friday.

"Some of the best players in the game aren't that big. If the smaller blokes keep knocking the bigger blokes down, the big blokes can become a liability."

It's set the scene for a fiery clash between the two clubs in front of a packed house with the game sold out.

Pack statistics however blow all the huff and puff away, with Brisbane's pack (842kgs) outweighing the Titans six by just nine kilograms or slightly more than one kilogram per player.

That can be put down to young giant Dave Taylor who at 115kgs tips the scales Brisbane's way.

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