Canberra Raiders

Brown crossed for a 65th minute effort to give the Eels an eight-point lead late and was well supported by former Raiders junior Bailey Simonsson, who came back to haunt his old side with his own double in the victory. 

The 32-12 victory was Canberra's third on the trot, lifting them to ninth on the ladder, outside the eight only on points differential.

Parramatta had to dig deep to get the better of Manly in a tight struggle at CommBank Stadium, coming back from 20-10 down to register their seventh win of the season.

The Raiders are traditionally tough to beat at home on a Sunday afternoon and they'll be hoping for a huge crowd to make life uncomfortable for Brad Arthur's men.

The Raiders picked up where they left off in last week's big win over Cronulla to piled on four answered tries in the first half as the Bunnies struggled with their completion rate in a trend during games lost this year.

Tries to Papalii, Nick Cotric, Hudson Young and Sebastian Kris in the opening 40 minutes set up a 20-0 lead before both side's exchanged tries early in the second half.

A penalty goal with a quarter of the game left put the Raiders up by 20 before a blistering try to Xavier Savage sealed victory. 

Their last opponents in Dubbo, eventual premiers Penrith, put them to the sword with a 56-12 thrashing.

Not many would've predicted both those sides would be lining up a few months later in the big dance, but the Rabbitohs proved last year that a result like that can be a catalyst for change. 

This week's opponents, the Raiders, are on a roll after upsetting the Sharks in Magic Round in dominant fashion.

Ricky Stuart's side have strung two wins together and look like a team to have turned a corner after a tough start to the year.

Cronulla started the match creatively with a short kick-off working in their favour, but it was all one-way traffic against them after that as the Raiders raced to a 20-0 lead.

The Sharks got back into the game with two second half tries but the Raiders lifted in defence with some spirited efforts. 

Making the Raiders performance more impressive, Ricky Stuart's side were forced to defend their line for 30 minutes with 11-12 men after Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and Corey Horsburgh were sin-binned for professional fouls.

Such was their composure and faith in their systems that they rarely seemed troubled in defence despite having 12 men for 63 minutes and going down to 11 men when Jesse Ramien was sin binned in the second half.

The Raiders got back on track with a win over the Bulldogs but know they'll need to go to another level if they're to make it two on the bounce.

When these sides met in round one, a late try to Hudson Young gave the Green Machine a 24-19 win over the Sharks in Canberra.

Canberra's five-game losing streak has come with its flashes of brilliance, messiness and heartache while the Bulldogs jagged their second win of the season over the Roosters last week and will want to ensure it's not a one-off.

It will be the 39th time the sides have played each other since 1998 with the Raiders holding a 20-18 record overall and having won the past five outings between the clubs with victories since 2018.

For the second time since his return to the Warriors this season, Johnson stepped up to secure victory for his team after a late penalty goal by Reece Walsh sent the game to extra time.

It was a heart breaking defeat for the Raiders, who were the better team for most of the match but have now lost their last five games in succession.

The Raiders led 20-12 at halftime but did not score a point in the second term.

After Canberra spent the entire second half inside their own territory in Sunday's 36-6 loss to Penrith it was hard to imagine any team doing it tougher than that but the Warriors found a way on Monday in Melbourne.

The Storm's ruthless 10-try second half left commentators grasping for superlatives and left Nathan Brown's men with a horror injury toll and only five days to pick themselves up ahead of a clash with a desperate Raiders outfit.

The Raiders cracked the Cowboys at the first opportunity, with Tom Starling darting through a huge hole to cross under the posts untouched just three minutes into the contest. 

Jordan Rapana crossed in the 15th minute off a lovely Corey Harawira-Naera tap-on and it could have been an ugly scorecard had Elliott Whitehead not spilled an attacking Jack Wighton grubber in the Cowboys' in-goal 10 minutes after that.