'Terrific opportunity': Holbrook stresses importance of Cowboys win ahead of bye

Justin Holbrook has urged his Titans side to leave nothing in the tank in their Round 4 conquest against the Cowboys on Saturday.

With the bye on the horizon after this match, the Gold Coast coach knows how perfect an occasion this is to set themselves up for the next phase of the season, which includes the week off before four of their next five games being played in Queensland - two of those being at Cbus Super Stadium.

"It's definitely a great opportunity, but we're well aware how difficult it's going to be with them getting beaten at home last weekend to the Warriors," Holbrook said.

"It's a terrific opportunity... we've got the bye next week, so if we can go three from four to start the year, that's what we want to do.

"We understand how big task the task is, but it's so important. We're only going in Round 4, but if we're good enough to win this week going a bye, it can set it us nicely and obviously with the bye, you get the points from that, so we could be four from five and then we got a couple of home games in a row.

"Three from four having three away games would be enormous, but the other three weeks are done... so we've just got to nail this weekend and play well in Townsville."

Despite missing a number of key stars, including Scott Drinkwater, Peta Hiku (suspension) and Rueben Cotter (injury); Holbrook is not ignorant to how strong the competition favourites will be at home, especially after a lacklustre start to their season, which has included back-to-back losses over the past fortnight.

"They're still so strong even with Cotter out. He's a big part of their side and provides a lot of aggression and effort, but there's still Chad Townsend running the show, (Tom) Dearden, Val Holmes, (Jason) Taumalolo, Reece Robson at No. 9 and (Jeremiah) Nanai... he've still got a lot of strike and we were expecting that, so that's okay," he said.

"We know [they've been disappointing] and they know that. They don't all of a sudden, can't play the game with a couple of disappointing games, but that's just a challenge for us and we're well aware of it.

"We've just got to concentrate on ourselves but it was similar last week... there was all the talk around Melbourne not losing two games in a row and things like that. They got beaten at home and then we were good enough to beat them, so we're going to have to do the same this week."