They've lost five straight and tumbled to 12th on the NRL ladder, but Josh Papalii is adamant morale in the playing camp is as high as it was when the Raiders kicked off in round one as genuine premiership contenders.
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The veteran prop was sporting a huge grin at training on Tuesday ahead of Saturday's clash with Canterbury, and quick to back his under-performing teammates predicting a precious win was just around the corner.
"[It's] the same as round one to this round, still positive, everyone's still working pretty hard, the younger boys are pushing the senior boys with playing well, they're keeping us on our toes," Papalii said.
"The camp's pretty good at the moment."
There was certainly no mention of Josh Hodgson stepping down as captain, George Williams being homesick, or discontent among players' wives.
"Back in 2011 we lost eight in a row and [were] getting booed off the field, I've been here at the club when we weren't traveling too well and we had six to 8000 in the crowd," Papalii said.
"There's good footy ahead. We're working hard away from the field.
"This year's no different from the last two years, we've been very successful and it's just not paying off on the field [this season]. The boys are still focused and still training hard which is the main point.
"That belief and what we had last year, we still have that. You can see in patches of our game where it doesn't matter who we're playing, we're unstoppable.
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"Then there's so many bad patches where we're just leaking tries left right and centre. I think that's the area to work on at the moment, we're just leaking some easy tries and that's one thing we've spoken about the last couple of weeks is just trying to fix those little areas up and hopefully fix it quick because we're almost halfway during the season.
"I believe in the boys 100 per cent. I'm someone who's biased to the club and biased to the boys - I definitely know we'll come out better."
Josh Hodgson's return to the side this week injects a stack of experience into coach Ricky Stuart's playmaking stocks, but veteran centre Jarrod Croker remains unavailable with a shoulder injury.
"Not having Toots [Croker] out there is massive, he's a legend here, he's such an experienced player, he does bring a lot of calmness and leadership," winger Bailey Simonsson said.
"We've still got a lot of other great leaders and senior boys that have been doing a great job. We still have 100 per cent faith in each other and our coaching staff that we'll turn this around."
James Buckley
James is a Queanbeyan boy enjoying his second stint at the Canberra Times, more than eight years on from his first. In between he's traveled the world, and spent time covering sport in Sydney.
James is a Queanbeyan boy enjoying his second stint at the Canberra Times, more than eight years on from his first. In between he's traveled the world, and spent time covering sport in Sydney.
