Thompson is desperate to force his way into David Furner's team to play the Broncos after being left out of the Raiders' round one line-up which lost to Penrith last weekend.

The veteran front-rower set himself a couple of goals at the start of the NRL season.

His first task was to play well enough to convince the Raiders to offer him a new contract at the end of the season.

The second was to play in all 24 of the Raiders' games.

After just one round, the latter goal has already been scrapped Thompson now wants to play all of the remaining 23 games.

But while he was omitted from the 17-man squad which lost to Penrith, Thompson hoped his first full pre-season in four years would help launch him into attack against the Broncos.

''I was a bit devastated not to play last weekend, but I've got a chance this week and hopefully I can play well on Monday night,'' Thompson said.

For more on this story, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.