A decision on the selection of Brisbane's Justin Hodges' for the clash with the Bulldogs won't be made until Friday.

Hodges has been battling a virus and a decision on whether he'll play won't be made until Friday while Tonga was added to the Bulldogs side after surviving a brutal fitness test on his injured rib from teammate Mark O'Meley.

"I did a fitness test with Ogre (O'Meley) yesterday and if I can handle that then I thought I'd be able to handle the game," said Tonga, who was expected to be out for another two weeks.

"He tried to hit me in the ribs, he didn't hold back."

Hodges was too ill to train but the Broncos would not rule him out.

An already injury-ravaged Brisbane would face an uphill battle if he joined Darren Lockyer, Brent Tate, Karmichael Hunt, Greg Eastwood and Ben Hannant on the Suncorp Stadium sidelines on Friday night.

"Justin was pretty sick today and we won't know until tomorrow whether he'd playing or not," said Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett.

"He's got a virus. How bad's a virus? I don't know.

"All I know is he's not fit enough to be here today to train so I assume he's pretty sick."

Bulldogs coach Steve Folkes said he was surprised Tonga was playing but glad to have him back given his try-scoring ability.

Folkes concede a Lockyer-less Broncos lose something in attack.

"Lockyer's the key to a lot of their plays. Having him and Shaun Berrigan out takes away a bit of thrust from their halves I guess.'

Bennett acknowledged the threat posed by the 105kg Sonny Bill Williams.

Williams tore Canberra's defence to shreds last weekend, scoring three tries and setting up a couple more with defenders hanging off his 191cm towering torso.

"He's such a wonderful player and he's in great form," said Bennett of Williams, who remains off limits to the media following a string of off-field misdemeanours in recent months.

"It will be a tough night for us.

"Everybody has to be a part of it (stopping Williams) he takes a lot of controlling.

"He appears in a lot of different places on the football field so you've just got to do you best with him."

Regardless of whether Hodges plays, Bennett said the players had to get on with the job.

"If he can't play tomorrow night, we'll shift Darius Boyd back there and bring Joel Moon into the side and get on with it," he said.

"The commitment has been there and they've been doing about as good as they can do and that's all you can ask as a coach."

Brisbane had the wood on the Bulldogs last year on the way to their sixth premiership.

They beat them 25-6 at Suncorp Stadium and 30-0 at Telstra late in the season.

They completed the clean sweep with a 37-20 victory in their preliminary final showdown at Aussie Stadium.

"It was a different team last year but it's the time of the year you want to be playing well," said Bennett.

"Last year we got it right at this time of the year but we're in good form now.

"There's nothing wrong with out form. We're in good form and playing some good football.

"We've been playing top teams as undermanned as we are and these guys can't do a lot more."

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