They've taken down the NRL premiers, but veteran Gold Coast prop Luke Bailey says the Titans can't fool themselves by claiming they've turned the corner in what has been a disastrous season to date.

Bailey said there was still plenty of work to do for the Titans to haul themselves back into finals contention after winning just three of 12 games over the opening half of the season.

The second half got off on the right foot with a 28-14 win over the Dragons at WIN Jubilee Oval on Friday night, but Bailey said it was worth remembering the premiers were without six of their best due to State of Origin commitments on top of injured trio Matt Cooper, Brett Morris and Kyle Stanley.

"We can't get carried away, they still made some linebreaks at us and ran around us off kick-offs, just some stuff that's not first grade standard," said Bailey, who came up with a powerhouse 186 metres off 17 runs against his former club.

"Everyone will be talking it up at training that we've still got a lot to improve on.

"It was desperate times I suppose.

"They were understrength but it was just good to get a win, get a bit of confidence back."

For a while it looked like the Dragons were going to continue Gold Coast's misery after taking an 8-4 lead into halftime, but the Titans came out a different side after the break as they gave the ball a bit more air.

"We had a chat and promised ourselves we were going to do something a bit better than what we did," Bailey said of the second half performance.

"We did that in the second half and I started to see some glimpses of good footy which I haven't seen for a very long time.

"For 20-30 minutes of that second half, I just noticed something, we were doing what we do at training - it was good.

"It's a lot to work with but it means nothing if we don't front up next week."

For coach John Cartwright, the win - which temporarily at least moved the Titans to within four points of the top eight -vindicated his decision to stand down from his role as NSW Origin assistant.

"The decision was made easy - I just wouldn't have been comfortable in camp for a week knowing what was going on back home," Cartwright said.

"There's a lot of hard work been going on ... I probably felt I needed to be there."

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