Hit and run: Inside the Raiders' mission to storm Manly's fortress

A chartered flight to Sydney and back will underpin the mad dash to the Harbour City, while coach Ricky Stuart hopes the injection of boom youngster Xavier Savage as one of four new faces, and a rapid turnaround from last round's heavy loss can deliver two priceless premiership points.

Stuart's coaching staff and his players depart the capital at 2pm on Thursday afternoon, wrapped up in the NRL bubble required to maintain the 2021 premiership season.

They'll land at Bankstown airport, head for Sydney's northern beaches and then spend two hours preparing for one of their toughest assignments this season against the high-flying Manly Sea Eagles.

At fulltime they head back to Bankstown, and another chartered flight is scheduled to land in Canberra at 1am early Friday morning.

"We were made aware of it yesterday [Tuesday] morning that we were going to have both the flight to Manly and the return in our travel arrangements. . .which I've got to thank the league for," Stuart said.

"In these conditions it's the best preparation you're going to have for fly in fly out. We'll get to the ground probably around four o'clock - two hours in a private area and into our two-hour preparation into the match.

"It's a big day. Just to have those flights in these situations, it's nice to have that little bit more of comfort going home rather than having to sit on a bus for five hours."

Saturday's 38-point loss to the Gold Coast Titans was the Raiders' ninth in their past 11 matches, leaving them floundering in 13^th spot on the ladder.

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They face the Sea Eagles without their two biggest names in Jack Wighton and Josh Papalii, but Manly is similarly affected by State of Origin with Tom Trbojevic and Daly Cherry-Evans also off serving their respective states.

The Sea Eagles have climbed to fifth in the NRL, after losing their first four matches of the year while Trbojevic was sidelined with a hamstring injury.

"They've improved over the course of the season especially with Tom and Daly there, but I think they've certainly improved as a full squad throughout the last six or so weeks and you can see that they're playing with a lot of confidence and belief," Stuart said.

"We say that a lot but let me tell you it's very very important to have those two ingredients in your make up as a football team and also as an individual. They would certainly be a very confident team at the moment."

Stuart said he'd avoided taking his players through a lengthy video analysis of Saturday's capitulation to the Titans, Canberra's worst home loss since 2013.

The match came at a cost too, with Bailey Simonnson suffering a toe injury which is potentially worse than first thought. He'll likely miss at least a month's worth of football.

Stuart has also taken the tough decision to rest Englishman Elliott Whitehead after he picked up a shoulder injury and a nasty facial cut against the Titans.

"He doesn't miss much football Elliott - he didn't pull out, I made the decision because I know he would've played," Stuart said.

"We had a chat about the performance last week and the players, the staff are all very gobsmacked by it, we didn't see that coming. That's probably the easiest way to describe it.

"My job this week is to actually try and pick the spirits up of the players. It's very easy to come in with my head down and be cranky in regards to the result, the players are too, so there's no good all of us jumping on that boat.

"I've got to come in and try and pick their spirits up.

"When it's a short preparation such as we've got, I can't dwell too much on the past, I've got to be looking at what our next game is."