Gold Coast Titans' focus on St George Illawarra Dragons forward Trent Merrin Trent Merrin in action for the Dragons. GOLD Coast coach John Cartwright has branded Trent Merrin the master of the art of the offload and a key focus for the Titans ahead of today's clash with St George Illawarra at Skilled Park. While Cartwright fully expects the Dragons to field new fullback Josh Dugan just 48 hours after signing with the club, it is the presence and ability of in-form lock Merrin that has the Titans on high alert. The 102kg forward has been the star of the Dragons pack this year and many expect him to add to his four matches for NSW when Laurie Daley names his Origin I team in three weeks. Merrin leads the NRL for offloads, equal on 21 at the top of the charts with the man many consider the most dangerous offloader in recent history, Sonny Bill Williams. Yeah that wouldn't surprise me (that Merrin is level with Williams). It is an art in the game and he is about the best at it," Cartwright said. Merrin's probably the best exponent of it in the game at the moment. They're very productive offloads too, they're not just doing it for the sake of it. They generally play a lot of football off the back of it and he is very dangerous. The Titans are almost back to full strength, with Queensland Origin lock Ashley Harrison passing a fitness test yesterday on his ankle to join David Mead (broken jaw) on the injury comeback trail. Titans skipper Nate Myles said it wasn't just Merrin and his "fantastic footwork" who was at the forefront of their plans, but crafty winger Jason Nightingale. "Nightingale is another bloke we've mentioned in our video sessions, he has an ability to sneak around the ruck and do some good things," Myles said. Watching a lot of their recent games they've been playing some good footy. I thought last week they were outstanding and a lot of play comes off their offloads and their mobile men around the middle. Our standards have got to rise a lot from last week to be competitive. If, where and how Dugan slots into the team is another issue for the Titans. They expect Dugan to line up at fullback, so much so his name was called several times during yesterday's final training run. Some might consider it a risk to rush Dugan directly into first grade after eight weeks in league limbo, but Cartwright believes the ex-NSW fullback will be ready to fire. "I'd imagine with (Brett) Morris being out it seems natural they would shift Nightingale to the wing and put Dugan in at fullback," Cartwright said. We can't do much, we can talk about it but we won't really know until an hour before kick off. I don't know whether he has been training, to what extent he has had with them in the build-up to the game. One thing is he will be out to prove himself so if he's out there we will expect him at his best.