Hours before the Raiders' thrilling round-one victory against the Sharks, Canberra announced it had re-signed the former Kiwi international to remain in lime green until the end of the 2025 NRL season.

After playing just one-and-a-half seasons for the Raiders following his immediate release from the Bulldogs mid-2020, not even Harawira-Naera thought the contract extension would happen so seamlessly.

"I wasn't seeing it being done this early," he said after Canberra's 24-19 win over Cronulla on Friday night.

"Conversations only started last weekend and we got it done within a week."

Harawira-Naera said the club's camaraderie was unlike any he'd experienced elsewhere in the NRL, saying it was a major reason why he'd been able to quickly establish himself as a pivotal member of the team.

"It's the boys," he said.

"It's easy to go to a club and hope everything's going to go well, but it's not till you build good friendships that you know. It goes a long way to just have things go the way you think they will.

"We all get on like a big family."

When Harawira-Naera arrived at the club, he was lucky to still have an NRL career at all.

He had fought to get his deregistration over a sex scandal overturned, and was successful.

Canberra took a shot on him when he requested a release from the Bulldogs, and the 26-year-old took to capital life on and off the field very quickly.

"It helps me being in a one-team town," he said.

"All the boys in the team live in one area. That's a big plus.

"It's easy to get the boys together, go get a feed somewhere. We all live only 20 minutes away from each other, so there's a lot of pros, definitely.

"The lifestyle, it's quiet, and I'm not really a big city person anyway, so it all sort of clicked for me."

Harawira-Naera said he was now eager to "set life up" in Canberra more permanently after his contract extension.

Buying a house was now top of his to-do list.

"Something I've always always wanted to do is get a house," he said.

"I've had a few things happen in the past at different clubs with a lot of changes, but now that I've got a bit of security and a bit of time ahead of me, I can focus on myself and footy."

He also wants to try and bring his family to Canberra, too.

"I've got a sibling back home with mum. I think mum wants to move over but I've got a sister in Sydney, a brother in Brisbane and a sister up in Darwin, so we are quite spread out," he said.

"I've never really had a place to call my own."

On the field he's confident he can help the Raiders play finals footy and prove critics wrong.

"There's noise going around that we're not going to finish in the eight and that crap," he said.

"We've just focused on ourselves, trained hard and have a goal this year to play in the finals. I think we're starting well."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: