What initially threatened to cruel the Raiders' 2020 season has all of a sudden become a major asset in their premiership arsenal.
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Forced to trawl further into his roster than ever before this year after a tidal wave of long-term injuries, coach Ricky Stuart has unearthed the NRL's most reliable bench.
It means he has the luxury of injecting superstar Josh Papalii at the 20 minute mark, like he did in Saturday's win over the Gold Coast Titans.
Or leaving hard man Hudson Young perched on the pine until early in the second half, before calling upon the lock for a 30-minute effort to finish the match.
"The bench has changed now, it's not what it used to be being a bench player," Young said.
"It's a really good asset to have within the team being able to just start anyone, and especially Ricky having confidence in starting anyone.
"I'd hate to be playing against him [Papalii] especially after a 30 minute stint and then you have to D up and put a shot on Papalii with him coming at you."
Key forward trio Corey Horsburgh, Sia Soliola and Emre Guler remain injured indefinitely, although the latter could be available late in the regular season.
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A win over Canterbury on Sunday will all but seal a finals berth, potentially giving Stuart a major selection headache as his troops return to full fitness.
Just how the Raiders line up against the Bulldogs remains to be seen. Papalii has been given free rein by the coach to start when he sees fit, and the rest of the team falls into line around that.
English import Ryan Sutton was required to start against the Titans, and produced 195m in a 52-minute stint before he was replaced by Young.
"Even though we have got a lot of players out at the minute, we have got that versatility where we can start different players and people come off the bench and do a really good job," Sutton said.
"It's just up to the coach on the day what he does and that's the good thing about the side, you don't have to start with the same middles week in week out, you can give Paps who's done a great job a good rest on the bench and bring that impact from later in the game.
"He [Stuart] is a great coach. If he thinks you can do it, you can do it."
Despite coming up against the NRL's worst attacking side this weekend, Stuart's focus at training this week has all been about defence.
"We've made sure that we're looking at the video and we've seen where we have gone wrong, we fix it in training, it's an easy fix it's not a complex fix it's just making sure we're not letting the line breaks go through," Sutton said.
"It's a lapse of concentration mainly we've just got to make sure we get it right."