Glenn Lazarus bullish about Canberra Raiders' NRL chances

Lazarus has moved back to Canberra to be closer to family and was looking forward to watching his old club first-hand.

He's quietly confident the Raiders will be challenging in the coming years.

"I think the club's going to go places in the next 2-5 years so I want to be around to see them make their own history," Lazarus said.

"Hopefully they can make their own history and win Canberra a competition.

"I think all the dominoes are lining up. We'll see, but I'm, quietly confident they'll be fine."

Lazarus knows exactly what Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett's all about, having been lured by him to the Brisbane Broncos back in 1992.

The pair won two premierships together, giving Lazarus first-hand experience of what the master coach will instill in the NRL's newest club.

They'll be well coached and well organised, but Lazarus wasn't overly confident they'd make an impact in their first season.

He said the lack of a marquee player - especially in the halves and the rest of the spine - meant they'd struggle.

Although he recalled a similar thing was said about the Melbourne Storm when they entered the competition - before he captained them to their first premiership in just their second season.

"They'll be well coached, but the coaches are only as good as their talent," Lazarus said.

"On paper their team does not look very strong. It'll be competitive. but when you look at their best side they'll be able to field - their forward pack will be quite strong ... but you need quality halves.

"It's been a shame they haven't secured that big marquee-type player like a [Cameron] Munster or a [Mitchell] Moses.

"I hope it doesn't happen, but there could be some blowout scores."

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Lazarus wasn't sold on the need for the NRL to expand and expected the diluted talent pool to affect the quality of the competition.

He pointed to this season, where the top seven was basically locked in for the final five rounds - with the Raiders sealing their finals spot over their final two games.

The five-time premiership player said the Dolphins' introduction could especially hurt the teams who have struggled in recent seasons - like the Wests Tigers and the Newcastle Knights.

Lazarus felt the Canterbury Bulldogs would be okay given their recent recruitment.

They've added Reed Mahoney, Viliame Kikau and Ryan Sutton to a squad that's already been bolstered by Josh Addo-Carr and Matt Burton.

"One more team in the comp means other clubs that struggled this year are going to be less talented because they've had to share the talent pool," Lazarus said.

"I'm not necessarily all for another team in the comp ... this year showed the eight was, other than Canberra sneaking in at the end, the top seven or six was already set in stone weeks and weeks out from the end.

"There's only so much talent going around and I don't think having another team in it is going to help other clubs out - the Tigers, the Knights ... but some of these clubs are struggling to get talent to the club because they're just not performing very well."

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