The Raiders have engaged one of the NRL's pioneer wrestling coaches, Milton Dymock, brother of former Australian Kangaroos representative Jim Dymock, as a consultant.

Dymock is working in partnership with Canberra's established wrestling coach - mixed martial artist Steve Babic - one day a week at the Raiders.

The Raiders are putting such an emphasis on the sessions, they have even converted an area of their training headquarters into a wrestling arena, so the skills can be practised and immediately applied to football at their adjacent training field.

Wrestling has been a taboo topic in the NRL for the past decade, since then-Raiders coach Matt Elliott first made claims of Melbourne Storm's use of the grapple tackle in 2003.

Now wrestling is part of every club's training regime, even if clubs are still reluctant to discuss it.

''Every club does it and if you don't do it, you don't win the ruck and you don't win the game - that's what it comes down to,'' Pay said.

Dymock, who has worked previously with Cronulla, Wests Tigers, Sydney Roosters, Bulldogs and Parramatta, said the applications of wrestling training in the NRL had also evolved.

Dymock said the emphasis was now on positioning and achieving dominance in a tackle from the very first point of contact.

''It has changed a lot, in the beginning it was just completely mauling guys, now you look at certain other clubs they are just trying to whack guys, that's the emphasis,'' Dymock said.

''They're trying to bring it more back to one-on-one tackles instead of the gang tackle. So if a man can dominate in a tackle on his own, then pretty much the other guys won't have to be in that tackle.

''It all starts from the contact, so once they win the contact they can have a bit more control.''

Raiders prop Tom Learoyd-Lahrs said the sessions were having an immediate effect.

''Milton's got a footy background and Steve's obviously done a lot of wrestling … It's good to have a couple of different perspectives, it gives you a leg up.''

The Raiders had the third-worst defence in the NRL last season and conceded 624 points, better only than the Tigers (687 points) and Parramatta (740).

Pay and Matt Parish have followed Stuart from Parramatta to be his chief assistants at the Raiders. While Stuart has shouldered a lot of criticism for the controversial move, quitting the wooden-spoon Eels just one year into a three-year deal, Pay said his loyalty was to Stuart.

''He gave me a job at Parramatta in the first place, so to come down to Canberra, they've got a terrific roster here, the set-up they've got is very attractive,'' Pay said.

''We've got one another's backs … we're all looking forward to this season. We know what we can do as a coaching staff.''

Pay's primary role will be in defence but he is also taking a strong mentoring role with Canberra's pack.

Canberra's forwards remain virtually unchanged, with recruit Lagi Setu replacing Joel Thompson, now at the Dragons.