'Time to return the favour': Canberra Raiders forward Corey Harawira-Naera eyes North Queensland ambush

Barely three weeks have passed since the Raiders were left shellshocked in a 22-point loss to the Cowboys up north and the sides will collide again at Canberra Stadium on Thursday night.

The Raiders have to overcome a five-day turnaround in a desperate bid to snap a two-game losing streak in the midst of an underwhelming start to the season.

The group will be given Tuesday off before returning to Braddon for captain's run on Wednesday, leaving them with precious little time to plan for the Cowboys.

But versatile backrower Harawira-Naera says that could be a blessing in disguise for the Raiders.

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"Sometimes you can overthink and over-train when you're trying to correct stuff," Harawira-Naera said.

"Sometimes it's just a good open-hearted conversation with the whole group about what we want to achieve this week. We're trying to keep it as simple as possible this week.

"We need to hold the ball and build some pressure on teams. Every time we seem to get around the 50, we seem to throw an extra pass and it goes to ground ... we turn it over down their end and we end up giving a penalty away. A lot of it has got to do with our discipline and our decision making.

"They ambushed us, it's our turn to return the favour. I know it's a short turnaround but you only really need to talk about what we did and didn't do, there's not much time to actually train. We want to get them back.

"That was probably the game we thought got away from us. We made too many mistakes and were putting ourselves under pressure, which has been a theme of our last two weeks. We know we need to build up some pressure."

NRL ROUND SIX

Thursday: Canberra Raiders v North Queensland Cowboys at Canberra Stadium, 7.50pm.

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