The Canberra Raiders will have to scale the NRL's Mount Everest to play finals football and it's looking increasingly likely they could have to do it all without Sia Soliola.
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Cries are getting louder for the Raiders forward to cop a lengthy ban for the late swinging arm that left Melbourne fullback Billy Slater motionless on the turf.
Soliola entered a guilty plea to his dangerous contact charge and will fight to avoid a heavy suspension at the NRL judiciary at Rugby League Central on Tuesday night.
He now looks set to spend a number of weeks watching from the grandstand after the incident was sent straight to the judiciary panel, which would make him the third Raider to be serving a suspension at once.
Winger Jordan Rapana will miss the South Sydney clash after entering an early guilty plea for a grade one shoulder charge on Nelson Asofa-Solomona, opening the door for Michael Oldfield to play his first minutes in lime green.
The Raiders are already battling to cover for star second-rower Josh Papalii, who is serving the final week of a two-match ban for a shoulder charge.
Canberra players were prevented from fielding questions about Soliola's looming hearing so as to not interfere with the judicial process.
Back-up hooker Kurt Baptiste says the Raiders will have to find a second wind when they take on South Sydney without a host of their biggest names at ANZ Stadium on Saturday.
"All those guys are really big parts of our squad," Baptiste said.
"If we miss those guys it'll be tough but we've all got confidence in whoever will get put in the squad, whoever Ricky calls up will do the job for us."
The loss to Melbourne leaves the Green Machine in dire straits and Baptiste says the Raiders only have themselves to blame.
The Raiders are three wins outside the top eight with six games remaining and will have to run the table to have any chance of playing in the finals.
They face four road trips and clashes against two of the best teams in the competition in the final six rounds, making a late charge to the finals unlikely.
"It's a tough position we've put ourselves in and we've only got ourselves to blame for that," Baptiste said.
"We're not giving up. We're just taking it week to week, all we can do from here is try to win every game."
The Raiders will have to overcome long odds to make the finals but forward Luke Bateman doesn't believe it's mission impossible.
Bateman says the Raiders are "definitely becoming desperate" with their season getting closer to flat lining every week but he is refusing to write off Canberra's finals hopes.
Canberra went within a try of a drought-breaking grand final appearance last year but have managed to win just seven of 18 games leading into the home stretch.
"Now we're looking at six from six which as a playing group we don't see as unrealistic," Bateman said.
"We see it as extremely tough but definitely not realistic so that's what we're focused on at the moment.
"We're definitely underperforming and we know our season should be looking better than it is right now. It's definitely probably one of the most trying times that we've been through as a playing group.
"We've got a really tight knit playing group. No one turns on each other or anything like that and the boys have stuck really solid through some trying times.
"It's a bit of a learning curve at the moment but the boys have always got each other's backs."
