Croker's comments come after North Queensland Cowboys champion Johnathan Thurston threatened to boycott the Dally M awards unless the Rugby League Players' Associations' proposals were accepted by the NRL.

Melbourne Storm captain Cameron Smith has also backed Thurston's move, while the RLPA continues to negotiate with the NRL.

The RLPA is aiming to gain a greater slice of huge amount of money to come into the game with the new television rights deal, but issues regarding player welfare are also a hot topic.

One of those is giving players eight weeks off at the end of each season, as opposed to the current six weeks.

Croker said the current demands on players when the entire season was taken into account meant a change needed to be made.

"If it's still a 26-week season, I think eight weeks should be a good break," Croker said.

"It's a pretty long pre-season. The pre-season itself, some teams come back at the start of November if they don't make the semis. They do two months there before Christmas, then it's another six weeks before you play a trial game after Christmas. Definitely takes it out of you.

"Some players, it's about maintaining them if they've had a lot of those pre-seasons.

"It's a long time going into a 26-week competition, it can be demanding, especially the big-name players who are playing Origin and Four Nations stuff at the end of the year. It can turn into quite a big year for them."

While Croker is yet to play Origin or represent Australia, he has had a big workload over the past three years.

This season's leading point scorer hasn't missed an NRL game since round 20, 2013, playing 62 in a row.

Croker this year played in the Auckland Nines, two trials, made his representative debut with Country Origin and played all 24 games for the Raiders.

His season isn't over yet.

Croker will make his second straight appearance for the Prime Minister's XIII in the annual match against Papua New Guinea in Port Morseby on September 26.

With the game basically a glorified friendly, there could be merit for it being scrapped from the ever-increasing rugby league landscape.

But Croker believes that would be a mistake given what it means to the rugby league-mad public in PNG.

"It's very important," Croker said.

"If you had been over there and witnessed first hand how much these guys love their rugby league, you definitely wouldn't want to be taking it out of the calendar.

"They bleed rugby league over there, it's a massive thing for them and it's good for young guys as well playing a rep game.

"It's a stepping stone to future rep games."

While he is looking forward to the game, Croker would trade anything to still be in the finals.

The Raiders finished 10th on the table, but could have been in the post-season if they had converted a couple of their five losses by two points or fewer.

"Always the first week of the semis is hard to watch, everyone wants to be playing there," Croker said.

"We were a little bit filthy that we weren't there more than the last couple years, but that's just the way it is.

"I don't think we are far away, it's definitely a goal for us for next year and beyond.

"I'm comfortable with the playing staff and the roster we have and the coaching staff and the club's going places."