Think again. It worked for the Canberra Raiders 16 years ago. And now it's set to help the Blues.

Canberra breathing educator Tess Graham was brought on board by then Green Machine coach Matthew Elliott.

Her work helped the Raiders jump to fourth on the NRL ladder in 2003 - with 16 wins - having finished eighth the previous season - with 10 wins and a draw.

She didn't know much about Nam Baldwin. The breathing specialist Fittler's brought in. But she checked him out.

While there could be a few improvements, she liked what she saw.

The use of mindfulness, the modern word for meditation, is good. Practicing techniques to control the breathing when under the pump. Also good.

Maybe have a look at training the breath for day-to-day life as well. Like Graham does with her clients. (I can personally attest to it ending my snoring.)

Having heard about Baldwin, Graham's now excited to see how it can help the Blues in their bid to go back-to-back in Origin.

It'd be the first time they managed that since 2005.

"I think it could be huge. I do. I'm going to watch," Graham said.

"This guy sounds like he's brilliant. With what he's doing with the knowledge he has I'd say he's doing a fabulous job.

"He's obviously got powerful techniques he uses, for example with the surfer Mick Fanning."

But the Blues, including Raiders stars Jack Wighton and Nick Cotric, aren't the only ones to benefit from working on their breathing.

From a Green Machine perspective, props Sean Rutgerson and Ryan O'Hara were the first to work with Graham. Back in 2002. Well before Brad the Bondi hipster made it cool.

Rutgerson heard it would help his athletic ability. Better recovery. Decreased fatigue. And he sought out Graham.

Then came O'Hara, who was hoping to fix his asthma. Which it did.

It was asthma that got Graham started in the breathing game. Some research later and she's been teaching people the Buteyko method ever since.

But back to the Raiders pair. Five sessions. One per day. Ninety minutes each. Then came game day.

So successful was it, the pair got called in. They had some explaining to do. Breathing easy was the last thing the club expected to hear.

"Then they asked these guys afterwards, 'What had they done in the last week?', implying, 'What had they taken?'," Graham said.

"That's a comment I've heard over and over again because [of] the improvement we can get."