Praised for effort or scrappy wins? Jarrod Croker knows which one he prefers and the Canberra Raiders skipper says being unsatisfied with honourable losses can drive the renewed Green Machine this year.
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The Raiders will be looking to break a run of consecutive defeats when they play the North Queensland Cowboys at Canberra Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Many expect the Raiders to win given they've pushed the ladder-leading Rabbitohs and the defending premier Roosters to the limits in the past two weeks.
Croker, however, says the Raiders are refusing to settle for being close enough and they're determined to stay in touch with the top teams to avoid a ladder logjam between fourth and ninth place.
"I'd rather play ordinary and get the two points [for a win] to be honest. It's nice to get some nice mentions, but at the end of the day we've lost our last two games," Croker said.
"We've let that top two or three slip away from us, we're sitting a couple of points away from them now and we're disappointed with that.
"We've got a lot of positives to take out of those two games, but we've come up with nothing at the end of it so we need to turn that all around. I don't really care how we play this week, as long as we get the two points."
Co-captain Josh Hodgson echoed Croker's thoughts, declaring the Raiders "haven't proven we're one of the best teams".
RAIDERS NEWS
The Raiders have won six of their first 10 games and have been in the top four since the early rounds. But they are on 12 points, equal with Manly and with Newcastle, the Wests Tigers, Parramatta and Cronulla just one win behind.
"We want to be up there [in the top four], if you're not there it's tough to win it," Hodgson said.
"We look at this time last year and we had one [win] from the first five games. We were hoping to string some wins together to fly up the leaderboard. We want to set the tone early this year ... our mentality has changed. We seem a lot hungrier and have a lot of belief we can go places. But we've got a lot of improvements to make if we want to be in the top three."
The Raiders will be boosted by the surprise return of Joe Tapine, who is back on the bench seven weeks earlier than medical staff expected after injuring his ankle in April.
"To get one of the boys back is really good. We know how aggressive and physical Taps is, we're going to need him to bring that off the bench," Croker said.
"When he's playing his best footy, he's as damaging as anyone else in the comp."
NRL ROUND 11
Saturday: Canberra Raiders v North Queensland Cowboys at Canberra Stadium, 3pm. Tickets available from Ticketek.
Raiders: 1. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, 2. Bailey Simonsson, 3. Jarrod Croker, 4. Nick Cotric, 5. Michael Oldfield, 6. Jack Wighton, 7. Sam Williams, 8. Josh Papalii, 9. Josh Hodgson (c), 10. Dunamis Lui, 11. Hudson Young, 12. Elliott Whitehead, 13. Ryan Sutton. Interchange from: 14. Siliva Havili, 15. Joe Tapine, 16. Sia Soliola, 17. Corey Horsburgh, 18. Aidan Sezer, 19. Emre Guler, 20. Sebastian Kris, 21. Royce Hunt.
Cowboys: 1. Jordan Kahu, 2. Kyle Feldt, 3. Justin O'Neill, 4. Tom Opacic, 5. Gideon Gela-Mosby, 6. John Asiata, 7. Michael Morgan, 8. Matt Scott, 9. Jake Granville, 10. Jordan McLean, 11. Gavin Cooper, 12. Coen Hess, 13. Jason Taumalolo. Interchange from: 14. Kurt Baptiste, 15. Mitchell Dunn, 16. Scott Bolton, 17. Francis Molo, 18. Corey Jensen, 19. Shane Wright, 20. Josh McGuire, 21. Jake Clifford.
