So forget Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten, Cody Walker was the most important name in the capital on election day.

The South Sydney Rabbitohs star proved himself worthy of the biggest office at the nation's political power base as he orchestrated a pulsating 16-12 win over the Canberra Raiders at Canberra Stadium on Saturday night.

If the new member for Redfern isn't bound for Parliament House, perhaps he has proven himself worthy of a spot in the NSW Blues' State of Origin shield defence.

Rabbitohs coach Wayne Bennett will say "what no one else wants to say" - and that is "they cannot pick the halfback and five-eighth from last year".

In Walker and Adam Reynolds, Bennett's Bunnies boast two of the competition's best halves - but he stopped short of saying they should be the first picked.

What they showed was they can win the toughest games. The image of Rabbitohs embracing each other and 17 heads sinking into lime green jerseys at full-time was proof.

It was a game enough to convince Bennett the Raiders are the real deal.

"On tonight's performance they will be [there come finals time]. They played great," Bennett said.

"They've got to do it every week, and that's the challenge for all of us, how long we can do it. It's hard every week to play games like this. It takes a fair bit of out of you.

"That's their challenge, but they showed they've got the quality of football to do it, and the way they played the game was spot on."

Spot on, even with Raiders coach Ricky Stuart missing "four world class players" in Joe Tapine, John Bateman, Joey Leilua and Jordan Rapana.

But in emerging stars Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Hudson Young, and Corey Horsburgh, the Raiders have unearthed a group worthy of sharing the park with the best.

Both sides completed at 84 per cent. Both sides were right in the contest until the final seconds when Canberra's last-ditch attack came up agonisingly short. It was, despite a slew of first half penalties, a game worthy of two premiership contenders.

But that is a story Stuart already knows.

"What those younger players are contributing to this team, is very healthy for the club," Stuart said.

"Their performance tonight was outstanding, those young blokes. Another 30 games for Hudson Young and he will be a different player again. Bailey Simonsson, Charnze, they're helping make this squad a better squad. If they can perform like that for a very high percentage of our games, they've got a very healthy season on their hands."

The boot of Raiders co-captain Jarrod Croker is all that separated the two sides at the break in a penalty-ridden battle.

Walker scored the first try amid his push to be included in Brad Fittler's Blues squad. Then another Blues hopeful returned fire as Cotric sparked a scintillating play leading to a Sam Williams try.

But again it was Walker that had his fingerprints all over Mawene Hiroti's eventual match-winner, after Croker's last-ditch effort in the dying stages was robbed in a one-on-one strip.

SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS 16 (Cody Walker, Mawene Hiroti tries; Adam Reynolds 4 goals) bt CANBERRA RAIDERS 12 (Sam Williams try; Jarrod Croker 4 goals) at Canberra Stadium.