Last week he called his team soft but coach Ricky Stuart labelled the Thursday night win over Canterbury one of the toughest in Canberra’s history after running out 26-10 winners.

The Raiders lost Ata Hingango and Michael Oldfield in the first half to concussion before halfback Sam Williams was taken from the field with a leg injury. They also went into the second half with just three replacements left and played the final 20 minutes with no substitutions.

“It was nice for me as a coach that the effort and the grind that I see every day came out in what I can remember as one of the toughest wins that I’ve ever been involved with in the green jumper,” Stuart said.

"He should've been a winger all his life!"#NRLRaidersBulldogs#NRL pic.twitter.com/LRidFvXfDr

— NRL (@NRL) April 5, 2018

“The adversity that we were under at half-time when we had three HIAs that weren’t going to come back onto the field … I was just, I asked them for extra effort and it’s amazing how they got through that period of 40 minutes and we still played footy.

“I’m one proud coach, and I said to them before the game, ‘You make me apologise for what I said about you last week’.”

Canterbury on the other hand looked pedestrian. Kieran Foran and Moses Mbye tried hard but there was simply no continuity in what they were doing.