STEFAN Martin has urged Nick Robertson to back up his "soft" sledge of Gold Coast, saying he needs to play with an even harder edge in Saturday night's QClash.

Robertson stoked the Queensland rivalry in a radio interview on Thursday, saying the Suns "take a bit of a backward step when blokes go hard at the footy."

Brisbane coach Chris Fagan was "angry" with his rugged defender, but speaking on Friday morning, Martin said the Lions had moved on.

'I RECKON THEY'RE SOFT' Lion slams Suns

"It's been a bit of a rollercoaster," Martin said.

"No doubt they're going to use it as motivation, but we can't control that any more.

"If they come out hard at us, we're just going to go back at them and we'd want to do that anyway.

"We'll meet that challenge head on."

Martin said Robertson had gone too far with his comments and after losing the season's earlier QClash to a Gold Coast team that won both contested ball and clearances, the Lions were in no position to label the Suns as soft.

The onus was now all on Robertson to back up his words.

"We all want him to know that he needs to switch on come game time, put it all in a box and be the aggressive guy he is," Martin said.

"His heart and soul is all about this club and no-one plays harder than Nick, we need that from him, we don't need him to be a nice guy on the field.

"We probably haven't had these external, off-field problems to deal with yet, so it'll be a great challenge."