Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart apologised to the fans for another woeful second half that saw the Green Machine get mauled by the Penrith Panthers 53-12 at Canberra Stadium on Friday night.

To make matters worse, Raiders five-eighth Matt Frawley broke his hand in the final few plays of the game and will miss 6-8 weeks - further stretching Canberra's stocks ahead of their tough trip to Brisbane to face the ladder-leading Broncos.

With Jack Wighton still having one game of his suspension to serve, Brad Schneider would be the obvious option to bring in to partner Jamal Fogarty in the halves.

To rub salt in the Raiders' wounds, Jaeman Salmon crashed over in the dying seconds of the game to bring up the Panthers' half century - having been at the centre of the "weak-gutted dog" controversy in the capital last year.

He had the last laugh, literally, after being embroiled in the controversy of Raiders coach Ricky Stuart's comment.

Panthers coach Ivan Cleary described it simply as "karma".

Stuart didn't want to go in to what he said to his players, but the message coming out of the sheds was along the lines of being mentally weak.

When asked whether he would ring the changes, he said there weren't a lot of options.

Stuart said fullback Xavier Savage (jaw) was still a few weeks away.

"I can [put it down to something] and that's what we spoke about [after the game]," he said.

"Some of that stuff's best to be left in the rooms there and make some decisions in regards to how we fix it.

"It doesn't matter who we play if we play like that ... the second half was unacceptable.

"I'm sure a lot of fans would like to know exactly what I'm thinking, but it's better we keep inhouse and work on it.

"I'm disappointed for all our fans ... I apologise for that performance."

It was only Nathan Cleary's class that separated the teams in the opening stanza with him setting up a try with a grubber and slotting a field goal just seconds before half-time.

At that point it was 13-6 to the Panthers, who'd spent the last 10 minutes of the opening 40 a player short.

Stephen Crichton had been sent to the sin bin for repeated infringements.

The Panthers do have an injury concern with star prop James Fisher-Harris going off with a knee injury, which Ivan Cleary thought was a medial problem.

Fisher-Harris thought he'd be right to come back on in the second half, but it started to become more painful as it cooled down.

The Panthers didn't need him, with the visitors running rampant with seven second-half tries.

It wasn't a performance fitting of Raiders prop Joe Tapine's 150^th Canberra game, as the Penrith middles got on top of their Green Machine counterparts.

MORE RAIDERS NEWS

Moses Leota ran for 131 metres, Isaah Yeo - in his 200^th NRL game - 134m, Spencer Leniu 133m and Lindsay Smith 115m.

It's the Panthers' fifth consecutive win over the Raiders - and their ninth win from their past 11 encounters.

Things don't get any easier for the Raiders - they face an inform Broncos at Lang Park and the prospect of only one win from the opening six rounds.

Penrith's left edge winger-centre combination of Sunia Turuva and Izack Tago both scored doubles as the Raiders' right edge struggled.

AT A GLANCE

PENRITH PANTHERS 53 (Sunia Turuva 2, Izack Tago 2, Nathan Cleary, Zac Hosking, Tyrone Peachey, Stephen Crichton, Jaeman Salmon tries; Cleary 8 goals, field goal) bt CANBERRA RAIDERS 12 (Elliott Whitehead, Hudson Young tries; Jamal Fogarty 2 goals) at Canberra Stadium. Referee: Adam Gee. Crowd: 15,334.

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