It's the game that's embodied the Green Machine, but now it's a chance to show how far they've come.
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The Canberra Raiders could be excused for being scarred by recent clashes against the Penrith Panthers, who they'll face in Wagga Wagga on Saturday.
![The Raiders have had some crazy losses to the Panthers. Picture: AAP Image/Brendon Thorne The Raiders have had some crazy losses to the Panthers. Picture: AAP Image/Brendon Thorne](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc71biyl5ig8xip4wjnxc.jpg/r0_440_4307_2871_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Penrith have won the past four encounters, all of which were in crazy circumstances.
Raiders fans should probably look away for the next four paragraphs.
Last year, the Raiders led 30-18 at Penrith before going down 40-31 in one of the most bizarre games of end-to-end football ever.
Earlier in the season, Penrith scored a converted try and a field goal in the final six minutes to win 23-22 at Canberra Stadium with NSW halfback Nathan Cleary riding high on the back of State of Origin glory.
Another late converted try sunk the Green Machine 26-22 in Canberra the year before that.
No one who saw the horror unfold in Bathurst will forget the two tries in two minutes for a 24-20 Panthers win.
It's the reason why the Raiders worked relentlessly on their defence and closing out games during the off-season - to start to win the close ones and work out how to hold onto a lead.
"There have been a few crackers over the past years. A few close ones, a few have gone our way and a few have gone to Penrith as well," Josh Papalii said.
"Saturday's going to be no different and hopefully we're on top.
"Over the last few years we've definitely played a brand of footy that's really exciting to watch and we have no trouble scoring points.
"Our problem over the last few years was letting points in.
"We've trained hard to try and fix that over the pre-season and we've started well. But it's a long season ahead."
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Like Papalii said, early signs are promising.
Over the opening seven rounds, Ricky Stuart's team has one of the best defensive records in the NRL - second only to the miserly Melbourne Storm.
Not only that, they've shown new-found resilience when tested late in games.
The Knights came at them late, but the Raiders held them off.
Then the Brisbane Broncos turned around a 10-point half-time deficit to take a two-point lead with 20 minutes remaining.
The old Raiders, the one of the past two seasons, would have buckled.
But the current crop steadied, took back the lead and held off a late Broncos flurry.
While they went down to Manly 22-18 on Sunday, Papalii said it was important to capitalise on their good start to the season that has them in the top four.
"It's still early. We haven't really done much so far. Anything can happen from here," he said.
"What we are doing is not leaking too many points. If we do that we'll finish pretty strong.
"The close ones at the moment, they're the ones we've got to be winning because they tend to add up towards the end of the season.
"In saying that, we've started well, but just being able to finish it is probably going to be the hardest thing and racking up the two points [against Penrith] would be pretty handy."
![Josh Papalii says it's important the Raiders capitalise on their good start to the season. Picture: Elesa Kurtz Josh Papalii says it's important the Raiders capitalise on their good start to the season. Picture: Elesa Kurtz](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc6rikqajz76c1gc934cs5.jpg/r0_0_2165_1592_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The Panthers have shown signs of improvement after a terrible start to the season.
While they've lost their past three games, and sit 14th on the ladder, Penrith pushed the high-flying South Sydney right to the end in the 22-18 loss last weekend.
The Raiders are looking to bounce back from a loss of their own.
Canberra co-captain Josh Hodgson said it wasn't so much a chance to show the new Raiders, it's more to show what they've worked on since the Sea Eagles.
They've been tinkering with a few things, looking to solidify their defence again.
"I don't know if we're going out to show what the new Raiders are about or anything like that," Hodgson said.
"We've just been working really hard this year on defence and we've been a lot better in terms of how many points we leak and really making sure we're working hard, especially on our goal line, to keep teams out.
"We were under the pump for a fair bit last week.
"We scored enough points to win the game just defensively we had a couple of tries we shouldn't have let in. We looked at them and we looked to fix them up this week."
NRL ROUND EIGHT
Saturday: Canberra Raiders v Penrith Panthers at McDonalds Park, Wagga Wagga, 3pm.
Raiders squad: 1. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, 2. Nick Cotric, 3. Jarrod Croker (c), 4. Joey Leilua, 5. Bailey Simonsson, 6. Jack Wighton, 7. Sam Williams, 8. Josh Papalii, 9. Josh Hodgson (c), 10. Dunamis Lui, 11. John Bateman, 12. Elliott Whitehead, 13. Ryan Sutton. Interchange: 14. Siliva Havili, 15. Hudson Young, 16. Sia Soliola, 17. Corey Horsburgh. Reserves: 19. Michael Oldfield, 20. Emre Guler.
Panthers squad: 1. Caleb Aekins, 2. Josh Mansour, 3. Dallin Watene-Zelezniak, 4. Waqa Blake, 5. Malakai Watene-Zelezniak, 6. James Maloney (c), 7. Nathan Cleary, 8. James Tamou, 9. Wayde Egan, 10. Tim Grant, 11. Viliame Kikau, 12. Isaah Yeo, 13. James Fisher-Harris. Interchange: 14. Sione Katoa, 15. Liam Martin, 16. Moses Leota, 17. Reagan Campbell-Gillard. Reserves: 18. Jarome Luai, 19. Kaide Ellis.