St George Illawarra's left-side attack is set to apply a blow torch to hamstring-plagued Brisbane centre Justin Hodges, despite assurances from the Broncos they're not gambling by playing their strike player in Saturday night's knockout final.

The Dragons are convinced Hodges' dodgy hamstring, which has let him down twice already this season, is not 100 per cent.

Dragons coach Wayne Bennett knows Hodges' traits better than anyone from coaching him early in his career.

He would have gone over the 28 year-old's recent form and hamstring history and taken into account reports he failed to complete training twice this week.

However, Hodges did get through Friday's short session, including contact work, without any obvious problems.

Hodges has been battling a "tight" hamstring in the build-up to the clash with Bennett tipped to put the Origin and Test centre's hamstring under load by directing some heavy duty traffic down his side through Matt Cooper, Brett Morris and big Ben Creagh.

He will also attempt to have Hodges turning and chasing kicks to put his hamstring to the test early.

"Hodgo's good, he was just a bit tight at the start of the week and we didn't want to make him train," said coach Anthony Griffin.

Griffin may be wet behind the ears as a rookie NRL coach but he's been in the game long enough to know St George Illawarra can click on Saturday night and their season could be over.

"They're the premiers, they've got the master coach and they've got their back against the wall," Griffin said.

"They're going to play their best game of football (on Saturday) night.

"We know what's coming (on Saturday) night."

Griffin said the Dragons had been the benchmark of the NRL for the past couple of seasons, winning minor premierships and the 2010 premiership.

"Everyone wrote them off but now they're back," he said.

"I'm sure under the pressure of a knockout semi, that's going to come out in their game and we're going to have beat them at their best."

Griffin displays a certain confidence in his young crop of players who've been involved in some special games in the past month in front of sellout crowds.

"We've been on the Locky (retiring skipper Darren Lockyer) road show for a while so the big crowd is not an issue for them," he said."

Griffin wants his young players to embrace every minute of finals football.

"I want them to enjoy it and soak it up," he said.

"But we had to be honest about some of the things (mistakes) we made the other night (against the Warriors) that weren't up to the standard they'll need to be."

He dismissed criticism that the Dragons had been predictable and negative in the second half of the season.

"They've got Test and Origin players right through their side, I don't know how many they've got, probably 10 or 12, centres, halves, wingers, fullbacks who can score from anywhere on the field," Griffin continued.

"I wouldn't call them predictable.

"Take your eye off them they'll hurt you and they're probably a bit more ruthless than the Warriors, they'll make us earn everything we get."

Dragons skipper Ben Hornby said they had their own motivation with champion centre Mark Gasnier retiring.

"We want to make it Locky's last game and we're going out with our own motivation," he said.

Hornby wouldn't be drawn into any tactics Bennett had devised to shut Lockyer down or cut down his time.

"I'm not telling you guys, Wayne's always got plans," he said.

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