Wests Tigers and North Queensland hold St George Illawarra's NRL top-four hopes in their hands after the Dragons kept their side of the bargain by beating Penrith 32-12 at WIN Stadium on Friday night.

The Dragons moved - temporarily at least - into fourth spot on the ladder after making it back to back wins to close out the regular season, the Panthers unable to give departing duo Petero Civoniceva and Trent Waterhouse a memorable farewell.

The premiers need the Tigers to lose to Cronulla and the Warriors to beat the Cowboys on Saturday night to finish in fourth, but the lowest they can drop to now is sixth.

Despite the lopsided nature of the scoreboard the Dragons never really hit top gear, with two tries in the space of five minutes midway through the second half finally accounting for the plucky Panthers.

Having overcome a knee injury to play his last game for the Panthers before returning to Brisbane in 2012, Civoniceva's farewell turned out to be an ugly one with the veteran prop going off early with a potentially serious pectoral injury.

Penrith had the best of the early play as they gave the ball plenty of air, but the Dragons proved far more clinical, Brett Morris continuing his tremendous recent try-scoring form with a double inside the opening half hour.

Mark Gasnier, playing his last game in Wollongong before retirement, then put Jason Nightingale away down the right touchline, the Dragons forced to settle for a repeat set on the back of it that went unrewarded just before the break.

Penrith threatened to make a contest of it when rookie Blake Austin scored just seconds after entering the fray on 52 minutes, David Simmons tapping back a Lachlan Coote kick right into his path.

Any sniff of a comeback was gone soon after however when a Beau Scott offload put Jamie Soward over, before the Dragon turned provider with a cut-out pass for Nightingale to make it 22-6 just short of the hour.

Coote added another for the Panthers but the Dragons ensured they ended the night on the right foot with Matt Cooper and Mitch Rein adding their name to the scoreboard in the closing stages.

Dragons coach Wayne Bennett said he saw enough from his side to suggest they were ready for the finals, and he cared little about where the side finished on the ladder.

"We've done all we can do now, we've picked our act up and we're ready," Bennett said.

"We had to win for anyone to have any confidence in the place.

"... We didn't play that great against the Roosters but those other two games we played tremendous (against the Tigers and Melbourne) and we've had two wins since then as well so four out of our last five has been pretty good stuff.

"The big occasion will be the key now, we just need the big occasion."

While he will have scans on Saturday morning to confirm the early diagnosis, Civoniceva said he was preparing for six months of rehabilitation, which would result in him missing the Four Nations tour of the United Kingdom and the Broncos pre-season.

"I obviously wanted to go on that (tour) and have one last go in that Kangaroos jersey beside a good mate Locky (Darren Lockyer)," Civoniceva said.

"I was really looking forward to the opportunity to go away and unfortunately now with this it'll mean that I'll be watching and cheering them on from home.

"I guess one positive is the timing's right ... I'll have to wait to see what the scans show up but if it's the typical pec injury we're looking at possibly getting back in time to start the season."

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