Coach Anthony Griffin is confident Brisbane have re-discovered their defence, which proved so stingy early in the season, heading into Saturday night's NRL qualifying final against a Warriors side bristling with strike power.

"Our missed tackle count and our offloads .... the way we measure how we defend are back to where they were at the start of the year," declared Griffin on Friday.

"For the last month we've average 10 points a game which is pretty close to where we were at the start of the year."

Six rounds into the NRL season under rookie coach Griffin, Brisbane had the best defensive record in the club's history.

They were a conceding a miserly 8.3 points a game, putting them on target to better the magnificent efforts of Manly (8.5pts in 1995), Eastern Suburbs (8.9pts and 8.8pts in 1974-75) and a salary-cap assisted 10.9 points by Melbourne in 2007 as the NRL's best defensive efforts since World War II.

Without suspended forward leader Sam Thaiday and fullback Josh Hoffman, who runs the ball back as hard and fearlessly as any player in the game, Brisbane will need that kind of defence to stop a Warriors outfit blessed with speed in all the key areas.

Fullback Kevin Locke, halfback Shaun Johnson - who scored one of the individual tries of the year against Brisbane last month - five-eighth James Maloney and livewire hooker Aaron Heremaia form the speediest "spine" in the competition.

"They're terrific young players and their sheer speed makes them hard to defend, especially when you are fatigued," conceded Griffin.

"Speed is something you can't train into someone and when someone's quick they've just got that little bit of advantage.

"We have to make sure we're very secure around them, that we're not dropping off and reading passes and giving them extra time and space.

"We have to make sure we're defending them and not what we think is going to happen."

Griffin wasn't concerned about reports the Warriors planned to test Beale's nerve at fullback with a series of high bombs.

"He made the New Zealand team earlier this year because of his form (for Brisbane) at fullback," noted Griffin.

"He's well and truly up to it."

Griffin suggested the back three on both teams would come under a fair degree of pressure.

"It's semi-finals football," he said.

"We've got a couple of guys (Darren Lockyer and Peter Wallace) who can put the ball in the air.

"Hodges has shown in the past he can put in a blinder fresh coming back from injury.

"He's busting to go, he's only been out a few weeks," noted Griffin.

"He's been loud and he's been giving it to everyone so you know he's in a good frame of mind."

The Warriors officially ruled out veteran centre and former Bronco, Shaun Berrigan with Lewis Brown hanging onto his spot for another week.

The Warriors, beaten 21-20 by a Wallace field goal recently, are confident of continuing Brisbane's woeful finals record at Suncorp Stadium where they have won just one of their six games.

"It's not a bad thing for us to have that pretty recent memory playing in the arena, and playing against a pretty good Broncos team that night," said coach Ivan Clearly.

"We took a few things out of the game and it's nice to come back and have another crack."

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