The Blues annihilated Qld for the first 140 minutes of the series before the Maroons finally stood up sending the series to next Wednesday’s decider in Brisbane.

The northerners were annihilated in Game I forcing a raft of changes to the playing group which fared better in the Game II.

But Smith, who has been a little quiet by his standards throughout the opening games, said it was up to the men in the middle to silence the likes of Andrew Fifita, Boyd Cordner, Jake Trbojevic and David Klemmer at Suncorp Stadium.

He said the Maroons pack aiming up in the final 20 minutes of Game II to snare an unlikely 18-16 victory in the dying minutes counted for little.  

"I don't know if it's broken the stigma around them having a dominant forward pack. They have been quite dominant in this series," Smith said.

"I was just really proud of the way our blokes went about their business in the second half.

"We knew if we kept persisting at our game plan and chipping away at their forwards, we were going to get an opportunity and it happened for us.”

Smith said his troops must assert their dominance early or face the prospect of allowing the Blues to claim just their second series victory in 12 years.

"Our mindset should be much the same this time,” he said.

"There's no doubt their guys are going to come up here and try to replicate what they did in Game I.

"We need to produce what we produced in the second half in Sydney for the entire match."