The Canberra Raiders co-captain admits he thought he "might be in trouble" if the stem cell treatment on his chronic knee injury didn't work last year.

And given his 292^nd game has been so long coming, the big 300 still feels a long way off.

Croker returns to the Raiders centres to take on the Canterbury Bulldogs at Canberra Stadium on Friday night.

It will be the 31-year-old's first NRL game in almost nine months after his knee threatened to end his career.

He's spent the past six weeks patiently playing in the NSW Cup - the first time he's ever played reserve grade in his 13-year career.

While it's been 4791 days since his NRL debut - against the Sydney Roosters on March 22, 2009 - Croker said that's what it was feeling like given all the well wishes he's received.

"It's good to be back. It feels like I'm making my debut again the amount of messages I've got rolling through," Croker said.

"It's obviously exciting to be back. At the back of last year and not knowing how your body's going to be and at the start of the year playing six weeks of reserve grade you try to bide your time and wait and be patient."

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Croker's scored four tries in his six Cup games, but the main thing was he was happy to be back enjoying his football again.

He never sat down and thought his career was over, instead focussing on trying to get his knee right.

Now he's moving better than he did at any point last season, where he managed just 12 games - the fewest in a season since he started.

"[Retirement] was never something that I thought about doing," Croker said.

"I just thought, 'If this doesn't work I might be in a bit of trouble' - I was never thinking about that being the case.

"As soon as I had a conversation with [Raiders coach Ricky Stuart] and the staff up in Queensland, I thought, 'This is my chance to get it right and finish off how I want to finish'.

"The talk was that if it didn't work then ... that would've made it hard to continue on.

"So far it's worked. So far so good. I'm feeling way better than I was at any stage last season."

It's brought back the chance for him to play 300 NRL games and become just the second Raider to manage the feat after Jason Croker (318).

But that's nine games away for the Raiders co-captain.

All he's worried about is getting through 292 and getting a win for his beloved Green Machine in the battle of the two battlers - 14^th against 15^th.

He'll again share the captaincy duties with Elliott Whitehead, who's also returning after missing the past two games due to a sickening head clash.

"It's taken a long time to get to 292 so we'll worry about getting through that first and go from there," Croker said.

"It seems like forever away now the way things have gone. We've just got to get through Friday night and then hopefully we are getting towards [300].

"But the main focus is just getting a win on the board for the club."

Croker will resume the kicking duties and hoped it would help take pressure off young halfback Brad Schneider.

Schneider's done well in his co-captain's absence - kicking 14 from 17 at 82.4 per cent this season.

But Croker's return alleviates the 21-year-old of one additional thing to worry about.

"I'll probably kick I guess. I didn't really say anything to Schneids I just started kicking at the end of training [on Tuesday]," he said with a laugh.

"He's a young halfback too and I feel like I could help take some pressure off him there in regards to him just worrying about his game and not having to worry about kicking - even though he's done a fantastic job and he's kicking really well.

"It's probably one less thing he has to worry about now, which if that can help him and helps the team then that would be beneficial."

NRL ROUND NINE

Friday: Canberra Raiders v Canterbury Bulldogs at Canberra Stadium, 6pm.

Raiders squad: 1. Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad, 2. Nick Cotric, 3. Jarrod Croker, 4. Matthew Timoko, 5. Jordan Rapana, 6. Matt Frawley, 7. Brad Schneider, 8. Josh Papalii, 9. Adam Elliott, 10. Joseph Tapine, 11. Hudson Young, 12. Elliott Whitehead, 13. Ryan Sutton. Interchange: 14. Tom Starling, 15. Corey Harawira-Naera, 16. Sebastian Kris, 17. Corey Horsburgh. Reserves: 18. Harry Rushton, 19. Emre Guler, 20. Xavier Savage, 21. Trey Mooney, 22. Sam Williams, 23. James Schiller, 24. Peter Hola.

Bulldogs squad: 1. Matt Dufty, 2. Brent Naden, 3. Aaron Schoupp, 4. Jake Averillo, 5. Josh Addo-Carr, 6. Matt Burton, 7. Kyle Flanagan, 8. Luke Thompson, 9. Jeremy Marshall-King, 10. Paul Vaughan, 11. Corey Waddell, 12. Tevita Pangai Junior, 13. Josh Jackson. Interchange: 14. Bailey Biondi-Odo. 15. Joe Stimson, 16. Max King, 17. Ava Seumanufagai. Reserves: 20. Jackson Topine, 19. Joshua Cook, 21. Brandon Wakeham, 22. Reece Hoffman, 23. Jayden Okunbor, 24. Paul Alamoti, 25. Chris Patolo.

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