The yardstick of the NRL over the opening half of the season, St George Illawarra coach Wayne Bennett concedes he has no idea whether the premiers will regain their pre-Origin momentum.

After watching his cobbled-together outfit - minus nine regulars due to State of Origin and injury - stumble to a 28-14 loss to Gold Coast on Friday night, Bennett admitted fearing that the good work of the opening three months of the season could go to waste.

The loss to the Titans followed a draw to Parramatta in which many of his players looked physically jaded, the Dragons with little respite on the horizon as the representative season takes full grip.

"We're just paddling water at the moment, and we know we've got another three weeks to go before it even starts to get a little bit clearer out there for us," Bennett said.

"... It's happened to me on many occasions before with different teams, you're playing so well up to that point where the Origin series starts and it goes on for nearly two months and you just lose your momentum.

"Sometimes you'll get it back at the back end of the season, sometimes you don't get it back and that's the difficult part.

"That challenge is still in front of us right now to see how we finish up in another month's time and see how long it takes us to get back into the grove, if we get back into the groove."

The Dragons won't get much chance to play themselves back into form either with games against fifth-placed Brisbane and third-placed Manly over the next fortnight.

They then take on Newcastle in their second match without their Origin contingent, the Knights likely to only be without skipper Kurt Gidley for the July 3 match-up.

"I said when we started a month ago that it was a crazy part of the season and it was just going to be topsy turvey and we'd have some pretty tough periods through it," Bennett said.

"That's how it's panning out and will continue to pan out."

The Dragons were confidentskipper Ben Hornby would be right to play next week after rolling his ankle near fulltime on Friday night.

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