Gold Coast officials are angry about being left in the dark over the injury sustained by Luke Bailey in Origin training that kept the NSW prop out of yesterday's gritty win over Wests Tigers.

While scans taken after the Blues' final training session on Tuesday cleared Bailey of a torn pectoral muscle, the Titans claim there was a danger of their co-captain doing further damage by playing.

With Bailey missing most of the 2004 season with former club St George Illawarra because of a similar injury, Gold Coast medical staff decided it wasn't worth the risk of him playing at Campbelltown Stadium yesterday.

The injury has been diagnosed as a strain and Bailey is expected to be fit for Saturday night's home clash with Newcastle but the Titans are fuming that they were not consulted and learnt about the training mishap from the media only last Tuesday night.

"It's not a major injury, we hope, but he definitely did it in the lead-up to the Origin game and playing Origin didn't help him," Gold Coast coach John Cartwright said.

It was confirmed yesterday that Bulldogs prop Mark O'Meley had been called into the NSW side on Tuesday afternoon but was then later told he was not required after Bailey declared himself fit.

Asked yesterday about the unease with the Titans camp, the Test forward said: "You can't rule yourself out of Origin, that's pretty silly.

"The scan came back clear but a few of the symptoms were very similar to what I'd had before. It was a bit painful so we just strapped it up, that was the best they could do. I came through the game all right, just a little bit sore. If it was a semi-final or something I probably would have played today."

Despite speaking to the players about the opportunity to leapfrog Cronulla and the loser of tonight's Newcastle-Canberra match into equal third place on 16 points by beating the Tigers, Cartwright decided it was more important to ensure Bailey was fit for the games ahead.

"Whether he could have played or not today, it was probably 50-50, but he could have done more damage if he did play so it was decided that we should give him a rest," Cartwright said.

"It's such a tight competition you can just sense that at some stage over the next couple of weeks it is going to break into the sides that can't make it, the sides that can make it and the sides that are fighting for a top-four spot.

"If you string three or four wins together you're going to end up in the top half of the competition."

After losing props Michael Henderson (broken leg) and Brad Meyers (knee) for the season, the Titans have recruited Ian Donnelly from Melbourne and he made his debut for the club yesterday in the absence of Bailey.

Co-captain Scott Prince said the mid-season recruitment of Donnelly and five-eighth Josh Lewis from Sydney Roosters had helped spark the enthusiasm of the rest of the side and those levels will gain a further boost next week when fullback Preston Campbell returns from a knee injury.