A Cowboys side with no hope of making the finals is ready to squeeze as much confidence from the remainder of 2018 as they can, and spoil some finals hopes along the way.
With a six-point gap between the Warriors at eighth and the Raiders at ninth, the Cowboys will need to be good in Canberra to stop a home side that is playing to keep its slim finals hopes alive.
Superstar forward Jason Taumalolo is looking forward to the challenge the Raiders are likely to present at a cold Saturday night in Canberra.
"Canberra are a team known for throwing the ball around and obviously they're a bit desperate to get into the top eight," Taumalolo said.
"For a team like them they have no pressure either so they're out there, they're throwing the ball around, when you have two creative halves like Aidan Seizer and Blake Austin it's going to be a bit more challenging.
"They have strike power across the field and we can't just limit one player we've got to contain the whole team for the whole 80 minutes."
Match: Raiders v Cowboys
Round 18 -
home Team
Raiders
9th Position
away Team
Cowboys
15th Position
Venue: GIO Stadium, Canberra
Centre Kane Linnett is also looking forward to putting a wrench in the works of some finals aspirations, although he admits it will be a tough challenge to do it in Canberra.
"The last few years we've been playing finals footy and it's always hard when you come up against the teams a bit lower, they're always up to try and knock you off so I guess we can do that in return," Linnett said.
"It's been a tough year but we haven't been far away against some of the best teams and we just haven't come up with the two points, so we've just got to be better."
