Justin Hodges watched from the stands but Brisbane were too good for an injury-battered St George Illawarra in their 21-14 win at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night.

The long-awaited return of Hodges from a hamstring injury will stretch to six weeks for the Broncos but his replacement Jack Reed turned in one of the games of his young NRL career.

The Bribie Island product had a hand in both of Queensland winger Jharel Yow Yeh's tries before barging over for one himself in the 58th minute.

The Broncos also lost Corey Parker (groin) following Wednesday's State of Origin clash, but it was the Dragons who felt it the most with NSW pair Ben Creagh (ankle) and Beau Scott (medial ligament, ear) failing to back up.

Compounding their woes Brett Morris was ruled out of a comeback from the hamstring injury picked up three weeks ago against the Wests Tigers, Dean Young was a late scratching with his ongoing knee complaint and Ben Hornby's comeback from an ankle injury lasted just 40 minutes before he was consigned to watching the game from the bench.

Ratu Peni Tagive, playing in place of Morris, opened the scoring in the second minute. From there a sloppy arm wrestle ensued with plenty of dropped ball and four disallowed tries.

Dave Hala broke through for his first NRL try in seven games in the 28th minute as Brisbane took control of the match - in particular through Reed and Yow Yeh.

The Queensland winger won a wrestle in the air with Tagive to score his first and then was the recipient of a Reed offload minutes later to open up a 14-4 halftime lead.

Jamie Soward, who backed up his first class performance with the Blues on Wednesday night with another strong game that stretched the defence on several occasions, combined with a runaway Mark Gasnier in the 52nd minute to pull the Dragons back into the contest.

Reed's try and Peter Wallace's sideline conversion stretched the lead to 10 but again the Dragons wrestled their way back with a Matt Prior try with just under 10 minutes left in the game.

But a Darren Lockyer field goal in the 75th minute ended any hope of a Dragons revival.

The loss means the Dragons have not tasted victory in their last three games, with two losses and a draw against Parramatta.

Lockyer, who was brilliant backing up from rep duty with a crucial 40/20 and the late field goal, heaped praise on Reed for his efforts on the right edge in both the centres and the back row.

"I think people are just waiting for him to taper off but he keeps producing every week," Lockyer said.

"Tonight he played on the other side of the field than he normally plays and he looked like he had been there for 10 years."

Reed deflected the praise, but said he was having the most fun of his young NRL career to date.

"I wouldn't say it was one of my best performances, I had a lot of defensive errors personally," he said.

"But I'm enjoying my footy at the moment. I'll let everyone else say who's good and who's bad, hey?"

Wayne Bennett, no stranger to losing players at Origin time from his Broncos days, commended his banged up troops for their valour, in particular Soward who was one of their best after his hot game for NSW on Wednesday.

"I thought he was tremendous tonight," he said.

"All those guys backing up, you just know how hard it is for them and they tried really hard.

"It was no fault of theirs but we didn't get across that line."

Both Hornby and Hodges are expected to be fit to play next week.

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