Jack Wighton leads Canberra Raiders back from the dead to beat Gold Coast Titans

But a Jack Wighton second-half masterclass turned around a poor first half to beat the Gold Coast Titans 24-22 at Canberra Stadium on Saturday.

They trailed 22-0 and looked all at sea, with a lack of ball again the problem.

But Wighton, who was guilty of turning the ball over in the opening 40 minutes, was back to his Dally M winning best in the second.

His kicking and running games were unstoppable and his centre Matt Timoko scored a brace. The Titans will be sweating on Moeaki Fotuaika, who was put on report for late shot on Raiders hooker Tom Starling.

"We need Jack at his best, but we need everyone at their best and stability is a big thing," Raiders coach Ricky Stuart said.

"When so many people wanted to criticise Jack and bag the hell out of him - he had five fullbacks last year, he had a number of combinations at halfback and hooker.

"And I don't care if you're Johnathan Thurston or Andrew Johns you can't play to your capabilities.

"And we're still trying to create a bit of stability. We've had two different combinations already with [Brad Schneider] and [Matt Frawley] in the halves for Jack.

"We've had [Josh Hodgson], Frawls and Tommy and Adrian Trevilyan at hooker for him ... as a coach you know what stability creates and when you haven't got it you get clogged up.

"You don't get fluency around your spine without that stability of playing week-in, week-out with combinations.

"It's just too hard. Especially in this competition."

The Raiders were their own worst enemy in the first half, with a combination of poor ball control and ill discipline repeatedly gifting Gold Coast possession and easy metres. They completed at just 53 per cent in the opening stanza - and that number improved on what it was early on.

Both Raiders starting props Josh Papalii and Joe Tapine started strongly, but that lack of possession limited their impact.

The Titans took advantage of three consecutive sets to open the scoring, an AJ Brimson cutout pass putting Gold Coast winger Phillip Sami over in the corner.

They got a bit lucky with the second with centre Brian Kelly putting a grubber in behind the Green Machine defensive line.

Titans second-rower Beau Fernor continued his impressive start to the season, getting to the ball first and showing quick hands to bat it back for Kelly to score.

Fernor turned scorer after Gold Coast halfback Toby Sexton forced a repeat set.

He sliced through a Raiders right edge that was in disarray. Tino Fa'asuamaleaui then crashed over from close range after the Raiders had given up a penalty and then a six again to pile pressure on themselves.

It looked set to be a repeat of last year's Titans visit to Canberra Stadium with a 22-0 score at half-time. But the Raiders finally held onto the ball for long enough to score.

Canberra winger Semi Valemei took advantage of a couple of offloads to crash over in the corner. He was back in his natural wing position with Raiders fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad off the ground for a head injury assessment.

Raiders co-captain Elliott Whitehead was full of praise for his two young props Emre Guler (117 metres) and Corey Horsburgh, who came off the bench.

"We spoke about just running harder and then getting quick play-the-balls," he said.

"I thought Emre Guler and Corey Horsburgh were excellent, especially at the start of the second half, got us a good roll on.

"We just came off the back of that. I thought Jack controlled the second half really well with his kicking game and took good control there.

"We just didn't really give ourselves a chance in the first half again - too many errors, giving penalties and not building up pressure ... the second half I thought we did that really well."

It was a better re-start from the Green Machine as they completed their sets in the opening exchanges.

They survived a scare when David Fifita got on the end of a bouncing Titans bomb - just managing to bring him down.

Then up stepped Jack Wighton's booming left boot.

He chased down his long kick to help force a goal-line drop-out and then put in a grubber for Matt Timoko to run onto. Timoko was over again shortly after following some Tom Starling brilliance.

Starling started on the bench, with Ricky Stuart preferring Matt Frawley to start at dummy half.

It had Raiders fans scratching their heads, with many of them wanting young hooker Adrian Trevilyan to be Starling's back-up. But Starling's run alone could've validated the move - he eventually offloaded the ball and it ended up with Timoko scoring.

The Titans were the ones who started to turn over possession, with Sexton throwing an intercept pass to Sebastian Kris.

Kris was the one to finish it off, scoring in the corner to officially get the Green Machine back in the game again.

That Machine became almost unstoppable in the second half with Wighton running rampant.

But it was his halves partner Brad Schneider's grubber that a storming Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad put down to level the scores p before Schneider cooly stepped up to convert and give the home side the lead for the first time. With just five minutes remaining. Then a Valemei bell ringer turned the ball over to seal the win.

AT A GLANCE

CANBERRA RAIDERS 24 (Matt Timoko 2, Semi Valemei, Sebastian Kris, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad tries; Brad Schneider 2 goals) bt GOLD COAST TITANS 22 (Phillip Sami, Brian Kelly, Beau Fermor, Tino Fa'asuamaleaui tries; Toby Sexton 3 goals) at Canberra Stadium. Referee: Chris Sutton. Crowd: 11,457.