The Green Machine held off a spirited Sydney Roosters second half to claim a hard-fought 22-16 victory at a freezing cold Canberra Stadium on Sunday.

It's kept the Raiders in touch with the top eight through a tough run of games.

Raiders coach Ricky Stuart has been careful to keep the hype surrounding Savage under control, but a piece of individual brilliance will again have tongues wagging.

It came off the back of a Ryan Sutton offload - the Englishman's dish hitting the sodden Canberra turf. But a flying Savage didn't even break stride as he picked the ball off his shoelaces before diving over for a stunning try.

Savage was also stopped just narrowly short of scoring a second.

And that defence? Well the Raiders held off wave after wave of Roosters offensives. Four consecutive sets to be precise in the shadows of half-time. The visitors looked destined to score on several occasions, but the lime green wall held firm.

"We made tackles, some one-on-ones, that if we had've made last week we would've one too," Stuart said.

"We can play better than what we did tonight, there's certainly some stuff we can improve on and easily improve on.

"There's some areas of our game we have to fix up. We just have to keep striving to be better."

With Josh Papalii in Queensland Origin camp, Joe Tapine was immense for the home side. Again.

He ran for 187 metres, with Sutton, Adam Elliott and Corey Horsburgh all excellent.

The Raiders will anxiously await the match review committee with Zac Woolford put on report for a crusher tackle on Roosters winger Joseph Suaalii and Jordan Rapana also on report - for allegedly lashing out with his boot and catching Egan Butcher.

Newcastle will be happy they've signed Elliott - he put in another excellent shift for the Green Machine.

He scored the Raiders' opening try when he hit a nice Woolford ball at speed to cross under the posts.

Elliott also produced several outstanding scrambling efforts in defence as he continued to build what will be his one-and-only season in Canberra.

There's been plenty of State of Origin talk about Queensland's aerial threats and the trouble it might cause the NSW Blues, but it was one of the latter's squad members, Suaalii, who was posing one of his own on Roosters' right edge.

He scored a second half try when Roosters halfback Luke Keary put a ball up perfectly for him to fly for.

Filling in for James Tedesco at fullback, Joey Manu took it upon himself to get the Roosters back into the game.

He caused some chaos with a powerful run, opening the door for second-rower Sitili Tupouniua to carry several Raiders over the tryline to score.

Tupouniua looked dangerous every time he got the ball and stopped short on another occasion and also lost the ball just short on another.

The Raiders' defensive effort just before half-time kept it at 12-6 at the break and it proved the difference in the end.

Canberra centre Sebastian Kris kept his try-scoring run going - he's scored five in four games - this time supporting Horsburgh, who swooped on his own charge down.

Roosters five-eighth Sam Walker combined with Angus Crichton to put Paul Momirovski over - although there were hints of a forward pass from Crichton - to give the visitors hope before Suaalii scored to make it a two-point game.

But Raiders centre Matt Timoko beat his man for the try to seal the win - although not without the Raiders having to make a gang tackle right in the corner right on the final siren to stop the Roosters potentially levelling it.

"I thought we were really stop-start the whole first half - penalties, errors - and it felt like we lost the ruck," Robinson said.

"I felt like they were more dominant in the way they carried and the way we tried to tackle.

"They won that area. I felt like we asked enough questions to get the points we needed to win that game, but overall really disappointing not to pressure right to the end there."

AT A GLANCE

CANBERRA RAIDERS 22 (Adam Elliott, Xavier Savage, Sebastian Kris, Matt Timoko tries; Jamal Fogarty 3 goals) bt SYDNEY ROOSTERS 16 (Sitili Tupouniua, Paul Momirovski, Joseph Suaalii tries; Sam Walker 2 goals) at Canberra Stadium. Referee: Adam Gee. Crowd: 6492.