The Raiders overcame three sin-bins, and at one point being two men down, to upset the Cronulla Sharks in their Magic Round clash on Sunday.
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A gutsy defensive display and a spirited finish sealed an uplifting 30-10 victory in Brisbane.
Canberra's fourth win of the year was achieved despite missing a sin-binned Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad to end the first half, and Corey Horsburgh and skipper Elliott Whitehead in the second 40.
"I know what's inside that jumper. We saw that tonight. I was very proud of that effort. It was courageous and a very tough win," coach Ricky Stuart said post-game.
"We completed and kicked well. we played better.
"There were games at the start of the year where we were making under 12 errors and that's not good enough at this level. But we've played better football."
Sebastian Kris was a standout coming in for injured co-captain Jarrod Croker and Matt Frawley's kicking game produced plenty of headaches for Cronulla, while Adam Elliott's last-minute replacement Zac Woolford was superb at starting hooker in his NRL debut.
From the kick-off it looked like the Sharks had brought their A-game, with a nifty short effort by Nicho Hynes catching Canberra by surprise. But the shine quickly wore off Cronulla in the first half as the Raiders ran all over them, taking full advantage of the partly sun-drenched pitch causing havoc for Sione Katoa.
The Sharks winger had a shocker dealing with the ball being kicked from the shade right into the sun, forcing him to ignore the health of his retinas in attempting to defuse each Raiders bomb.
Just five minutes into the game, Kris out-leapt a wincing Katoa to tumble over the tryline and give the Green Machine an early advantage.
Hynes was clearly still taking on the lead playmaking role for Cronulla despite shifting from halfback to fullback due to the suspension of Will Kennedy, however, the Raiders defence stood strong at every advance.
A tag-team tackling effort from Matt Timoko and Brad Schneider to force a knock-on by Teig WIlton just as the Sharks looked likely to hit back set the tone.
The high ball was bothering the Sharks all day, with Hynes even guilty of a rare gaffe, coughing it up on his own 10-metre line. In the following set of six Josh Papalii crashed over under the uprights off a nicely-timed short pass from Woolford, son of Raiders great Simon.
Papalii's many Brisbane family and friends in the stands especially enjoyed that one, his first try this season.
Gifted plenty of possession from Cronulla shooting itself in the foot with penalties and errors, the men in green were camped in enemy territory looking threatening. Schneider added two points with a penalty goal before Canberra was in again off another error from Katoa.
Kris nailed the Shark with a beauty of a tackle, popping the ball out for Nick Cotric to collect the crumbs and offload for Corey Harwira-Naera to stride in and score.
In the last five minutes of the half the Raiders were unlucky to lose Nicoll-Klokstad. Referee Liam Kennedy sent the fullback to the bin for some afters in a desperate tackle on Ronaldo Mulitalo on the wing.
The Raiders were then denied another try right before half-time with Jordan Rapana deemed offside by the bunker in beating Katoa and offloading to Cotric.
Coming out after the break with a 20-0 lead, no sooner had Klokstad returned from the sin bin did Canberra face two more sin bins in quick succession. First Horsburgh was called up in the 50th minute for taking out Mulitalo metres from the tryline, which led to the Sharks finally piercing through the Raiders defence through Katoa.
Then an accidental shoulder by Whitehead to Dale Finucane's chin drew attention from the bunker and sent the Raiders captain trotting to the sideline.
Canberra somehow held on, with Cronulla spending ample time in possession in their red zone, but even when Horsburgh returned, something had to give and former Raider Royce Hunt was the man to find a gap to get the Sharks within two tries.
It was too little to late though as the Raiders eventually had 13 on the park and a skip in their step again when Woolford provided some fresh legs.
HIs opportunistic run out of dummy-half to put through Schneider in the final minutes all but sealed the Raiders' win, when minutes later Hudson Young put a cherry on top of a memorable 80 minute-display.
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