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Coach Brian McClennan says the Warriors need to stiffen their defence or they could get embarrassed by the in-form Brisbane Broncos.

The Warriors realise they must turn around a dire defensive record, or risk being put to the sword by NRL attacking demons Brisbane on Saturday at Mt Smart Stadium.

It's a battle between the second worst defensive team in the competition and the game's second best attacking force.

But the Warriors will go into the match boosted by their past two performances - a 44-22 win over South Sydney and a 32-14 defeat against competition leaders Melbourne, that was closer than the score suggests.

Against the unbeaten Storm, they were well in the hunt until the final 11 minutes, when 18 points blew out the final scoreline.

Critics determined that for 69 minutes against the Storm, the Warriors produced their best football of the season.

However, coach Brian McClennan disagreed, pointing instead to passages of the Rabbitohs encounter as being the Auckland-based side's best work for 2012.

Against the Storm, the Warriors were guilty of continually coughing up possession coming off their own line.

McClennan said a repeat of that poor ball handling won't end well against the Broncos.

"You have to defend your line. If we don't do that particular part of the game very well, the Broncos will embarrass us," he said.

Melbourne's late scoring burst means that only once have the Warriors let in fewer than 20 points this season and their total of 196 points conceded is topped only by cellar dwellers Parramatta.

Prop Ben Matulino says being able to shut teams out, especially after making errors as they did against the Storm, has been a focus of the Warriors' build-up against the Broncos.

"Our goal-line defence needs to be worked on and we've been doing that this week," he said.

"We really could have turned them away after those errors."

Matulino has been in excellent form, leading the Warriors' go-forward in the absence of injured props Jacob Lillyman and Sam Rapira.

Lillyman, who suffered a nasty bicep injury in a trial match in early February, finally got the all-clear this week to make his first NRL appearance of the season.

The former Queensland Origin representative is expected to be used off the bench against a Brisbane team backing up from a 26-6 victory over Gold Coast, a result that extended their winning streak to six.

The Broncos' Kiwi trio of Alex Glenn, Gerard Beale and Josh Hoffman scored four of their five tries against the Titans, and they are bolstered by the return of Auckland-born forward Ben Te'o from suspension.

Matulino points to fullback Hoffman as one player the Warriors have to keep close tabs on.

The pair, along with Glenn, were teammates in this year's Anzac Test and Matulino was impressed by Hoffman's debut in the black jersey.

"He was my man of the match," he said.

"Hopefully he doesn't play that good against us this week."