Raiders sports scientist Tom Christian joined Jack Wighton and Josh Papalii in Darwin on Tuesday to get them ready for Friday's captain's run.

Stuart said Papalii and Wighton had pulled up well from Origin II and named them both to face the Eels on Tuesday.

The pair flew directly from Perth to Darwin to save a day's travel.

Wighton's an option to replace Nathan Cleary (ankle) in the NSW Blues halves for Origin III, but the early mail is coach Brad Fittler will keep him in the centres and use Wade Graham at five-eighth.

As The Canberra Times revealed, Josh Hodgson (thumb) is back after missing the past three games.

It means back-up hooker Siliva Havili returns to the bench, where Corey Horsburgh (elbow) joins him after missing the past two games.

Horsburgh's return means Emre Guler drops out of the 17, but he remains part of the Raiders' extended bench.

Sebastian Kris comes into the centres to play his third NRL game and he'll partner winger Jordan Rapana on the right edge.

He replaces Nick Cotric (ankle), with the Raiders hopeful Cotric will only miss one NRL game and be back to face St George Illawarra at Wollongong in a fortnight.

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"I'm sending up our sport scientist, who's an accredited physio, [Tuesday] morning," Stuart told The Canberra Times.

"He's going to go up and meet the players up there.

"He'll put them through rehab, a little bit of work and they'll just have a little bit of time off until we get there Thursday."

Stuart considered flying the entire squad up early to acclimatise before they play the Eels on Saturday night.

The forecast predicts it will be about 24 degrees and 70 per cent humidity at kick off.

But the NRL's soft cap on football department spending means they've opted to travel straight to Auckland following their round-19 clash against the Penrith Panthers.

They'll spend the Sunday night in Sydney and then fly to New Zealand the following day to prepare to face the Warriors on the Friday.

"From a football cap point of view, we had to make a decision whether we go to Darwin earlier as in [Tuesday]," Stuart said.

"Or we save that and budget it for the game where we play Penrith, where we'll stay in Sydney overnight and fly straight out to New Zealand because we've got a very short turnaround."

The Eels have named 19-year-old Dylan Brown (back) in the halves alongside Mitch Moses for his first game since round three.

His return sees Jaeman Salmon drop to the bench, with Ray Stone dropping out of the side.

Parramatta will be without centre Michael Jennings (knee), with Brad Takairangi taking his place.

NRL ROUND 15

Saturday: Canberra Raiders v Parramatta Eels at Darwin, 7.35pm.

Raiders squad: 1. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, 2. Bailey Simonsson, 3. Jarrod Croker (c), 4. Sebastian Kris, 5. Jordan Rapana, 6. Jack Wighton, 7. Aidan Sezer, 8. Josh Papalii, 9. Josh Hodgson (c), 10. Dunamis Lui, 11. John Bateman, 12. Elliott Whitehead, 13. Joe Tapine. Interchange: 14. Siliva Havili, 15. Corey Horsburgh, 16. Sia Soliola, 17. Ryan Sutton. Reserves: 18. Sam Williams, 19. Emre Guler, 20. Royce Hunt, 21. Michael Oldfield.

Eels squad: 1. Clint Gutherson (c), 2. Maika Sivo, 3. Brad Takairangi, 4. Josh Hoffman, 5. Blake Ferguson, 6. Dylan Brown, 7. Mitch Moses, 8. Kane Evans, 9. Reed Mahoney, 10. Junior Paulo, 11. Shaun Lane, 12. Manu Ma'u, 13. Nathan Brown. Interchange: 14. Jaeman Salmon, 15. Peni Terepo, 16. David Gower, 17. Marata Niukore. Reserves: 18. Daniel Alvaro, 19. Tepai Moeroa, 20. George Jennings, 21. Will Smith.