The 27-year-old has some enormous boots to fill when he lines up for the Canberra Raiders against the Canterbury Bulldogs in Sydney on Saturday.

Havili looms as Canberra's first-choice hooker for the next six to eight weeks as Josh Hodgon recovers from a fractured thumb with 20-year-old Tom Starling drafted onto the bench.

Injury has robbed the Raiders of their puppeteer in attack, but Havili hopes his style can be just as effective as he builds on his average of 28 minutes per game.

"I like to say my running game out of dummy half is probably one of my strong points. It is effective. I just happen to play what I see," Havili said.

"I've got to be clear and be wise with the decisions I make. My main focus for this is to be really solid in my defence, be solid in the middles, and be more efficient in that area.

"Everything I can do is just all for the team. Everything I personally do from nine is just to help the team out. Hopefully we get a good result.

"I know my game is different to Hodgy's, all I can do is play a really simple game with lots of clarity around the players around me."

Havili concedes Canberra failed to live up to the standards they had set for themselves when they stooped to a third straight loss against North Queensland last week.

But he is confident the Green Machine can turn things around despite the absence of up to seven of their best.

"Our mindset heading into this week is going to be different. Our approach towards it is going to be a lot different," Havili said.

"We've got a lot of injuries and key players missing towards Origin, but it's no excuse to us [not] performing on Saturday night."

NRL ROUND 12

Saturday: Canterbury Bulldogs v Canberra Raiders at ANZ Stadium, 7.35pm. TV: Live on Fox League.

Raiders squad: 1. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, 2. Bailey Simonsson, 3. Jarrod Croker (C), 4. Sebastian Kris, 5. Michael Oldfield, 6. Aidan Sezer, 7. Sam Williams, 8. Corey Horsburgh, 9. Siliva Havili, 10. Dunamis Lui, 11. Joe Tapine, 12. Elliott Whitehead, 13. Hudson Young. Interchange: 14. Tom Starling, 15. Emre Guler, 16. Sia Soliola, 17. Ryan Sutton, 18. Ata Hingano, 19. Royce Hunt, 20. Andre Niko, 21. John Bateman