BRONCOS king Darren Lockyer and heir apparent Karmichael Hunt have delivered a warning to their NRL rivals by rating Brisbane as well set for a back-door premiership assault.

The Broncos could not improve their fifth-place standing with their final-round 24-2 thumping of Newcastle on Friday night but gained plenty of confidence for the finals series as a result of the dominant performance.

Brisbane will begin the play-off series with a Friday-night clash against the Sydney Roosters at Sydney Football Stadium after the Roosters clinched fourth spot with their grinding 10-0 win over St George Illawarra.

Although the Broncos' Suncorp Stadium victory was celebrated largely as a fitting home-town farewell to Wayne Bennett and Tonie Carroll, the performance meant much more to Bennett.

His club now enters their 17th consecutive finals campaign looking like bona fide contenders.

Skipper Lockyer believed the five-try shut-out of a Knights outfit which upset defending premiers and favourites Melbourne last week was a huge lift in form.

"The previous couple of weeks we let in 20 points, so for the Knights not to cross our tryline is a big effort," Lockyer said.

"In the end, that's how you win premierships, on the back of your defensive performance. The conditions didn't really allow us to play open-style football, but we adapted."

Man-of-the-match Hunt rated the emphatic win as "one of our best" in a topsy-turvy season but said players knew they still had more to deliver.

"We fell away in parts of the game," said the 21-year-old fullback, who became the youngest player to appear in 100 top-grade matches.

"We were a bit scrappy in that we didn't really put our foot down and take it away from them."

Brisbane also escaped unscathed on the injury front, which was also reason to cheer. Justin Hodges, who started off the bench because of an eye infection and virus, was cleared of a shoulder injury.

Hunt was in sterling form, crossing for a powerful solo try after half-time and setting up three of the four other tries scored on the night.

"Whether it was my 100th or 99th [try], I just wanted to go out there and play some good football," he said.

"It's important to get a lot of good form under your belt in these last games before the semi-finals and that's what I wanted to do tonight."