As Wayne Bennett warned his former understudy that things were only going to get tougher for Brisbane, Broncos coach Ivan Henjak expressed confidence that his inexperienced NRL side could dig itself out of the rather large hole it finds itself in.

The Broncos suffered their fourth straight loss of 2010 with a 34-16 defeat to Bennett's St George Illawarra side in Wollongong on Friday night, the result leaving Brisbane - who last missed the NRL finals in 1991 - mired in last spot on the ladder.

With the likes of Israel Folau, Corey Parker, Justin Hodges, Denan Kemp and Jharal Yow Yeh still some time away from returning to the field from injury, immediate help is not forthcoming.

Henjak will be forced to persevere with what he's got.

What he does have is a bunch of kids, something Henjak believes the critics are forgetting when they take pot shots at Brisbane's lack of success.

"There's a lot of people writing us off and putting the boot in right now - okay we have to live with that, but you take some of the guys out of other teams like we've had to suffer over the last three, four weeks, I don't know whether they'd have the same result," Henjak said.

"There's 11 kids in that team out there tonight that came from our under 20s - six of them are still eligible to go back and play there - I don't know if too many other teams have got that.

"I'm not whinging about that but that's the situation we're in at the moment.

"We're not feeling sorry for ourselves, we know we're with the big boys and hopefully that's what those young fellas took out of tonight, that if they really put the effort in and have a crack, they can match it."

The Broncos matched it with the Dragons for the opening half hour, the home side then piling on 28 points before the visitors finished with two tries of their own.

Bennett praised his former club's resolve, but admitted things would not bee getting an easier for the 'Baby Broncos'.

"It gets harder each week. Every week teams are going to come at you and the pressure's there," Bennett said.

Henjak's tack was slightly different to the man he once worked under before succeeding him at the Broncos.

"There's some execution things that we need to get better at and they will get better at it - it's just going to take a bit of time," Henjak said.

"It's a learning thing for them - we told them before the game it wasn't a matter of what the result was or the scoreline, as long as they put the effort in and worked really hard for each other and try to execute things we talked about and they did that so I can't be critical of them."

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