Sezer rose to the occasion and booted three field goals to orchestrate a thrilling 15-14 golden point triumph over the Cronulla Sharks at a heaving Shark Park on Sunday.

In doing so he booked Canberra a place in the top four for the second time in 16 years in a finish that has the Raiders poised to host a finals game at some stage over the coming month.

Now Stuart is weighing up the prospect of resting key players as the Raiders prepare to end a three-year finals exile and mount a push for the premiership.

"I'll have a think about that. I didn't want to think about that stuff until I knew we were there," Stuart said.

"I'll check injuries and how players are, and if there are a couple of niggles I will have a look at that. It's important to keep building and keep some momentum and rhythm.

"But it is also important to get into the finals with everybody as physically prepared and in the best possible shape.

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"There's a few more of those [high intensity] games ahead of us now.

"The practice we have had over the past four weeks for our younger players who haven't played semi-final football, I don't think we could have a better preparation for them."

Canberra are still waiting on the return of Joe Tapine from a niggling rib injury.

The New Zealand international is edging closer to a return but Canberra captain Jarrod Croker says the Raiders will shy away from rushing him back on the eve of the finals.

The form of two rising stars makes it a feasible experiment - Hudson Young ran for 112 metres and made 40 tackles off the bench during the Sharks clash while Corey Horsburgh posted 168m and 24 tackles.

"As long as we can give [Tapine] is a good thing. Ribs are always fickle, they're hard. The longer we can give him the better," Croker said.

"It's the sort of depth we need, those are the sort of players we need. Obviously we've got Joe Tapine missing at the moment, and we need blokes like Huddo coming in and doing the job.

"Corey Horsburgh has been great over the past couple of weeks, Huddo has been great since he returned.

"They're the blokes we need coming off the bench, pushing to make the squad, and creates that competition for spots.

"This was always going to be a tough game, so to come away with the two points is pretty special."

The Sharks are now facing a do-or-die clash against the Wests Tigers to crack the top eight.

Put simply, Sharks captain Paul Gallen says it would be "embarrassing" if Cronulla are to fall short of finals football.

AT A GLANCE

NRL round 24 - CANBERRA RAIDERS 15 (Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, Nick Cotric tries; Jarrod Croker 2 goals; Aidan Sezer 3 field goals) bt CRONULLA SHARKS 14 (Ronaldo Mulitalo 2, Jayden Brailey tries; Chad Townsend 2 field goals) at Shark Park. Crowd: 18,985