Green Machine in meltdown? Why Canberra Raiders fans shouldn't panic in NRL pre-season

Scroll through social media and you'd think the Canberra Raiders had just shattered a record for the longest losing streak in club history, that club bosses needed to run a bulldozer through the joint and start all over again.

But it's mid-February and I'm tipping Ricky Stuart isn't exactly pulling his hair out.

Sure, a 36-4 loss to the Wests Tigers - last year's wooden spooners who were missing new captain Api Koroisau, Luke Brooks and John Bateman - might not look great.

But come September, when the NRL's top eight sides are competing for a premiership trophy and the rest have a Monday off - whether it be mad or mild - nobody will be talking about a Sunday afternoon in summer.

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Which is why Stuart won't be sleepless at a desk covered in empty energy drink cans as he overlooks the gym inside Canberra's centre of excellence, breaking down an ugly afternoon in Belmore.

Nor will Wests coach Tim Sheens be boarding the hype train for a team that, if only for a moment, gave long-suffering fans hope the highlight reel that was the 2005 Tigers can be played again.

"We haven't seen anything yet. We got beat by 40 [last week] and won by 40 this week," Sheens said.

Trial games are more about minutes in the legs and preparing bodies for contact than they are about the offloads, line breaks and try-scoring feats that decide which club pockets $100,000 from the NRL's pre-season challenge.

"We have a bigger picture at play here, and that is playing our footy," Cronulla coach Craig Fitzgibbon said after his side fell just short of claiming the pre-season pocket money.

Let's be honest: Canberra hardly looked inspiring during two pre-season trials that ended with losses to Canterbury and the Tigers.

Their completion rate on Sunday was just 54 per cent, they missed 40 tackles and made 18 errors. Jordan Rapana even gave the club a fresh backline headache when he was put on report for a high tackle - though he will be free to play in round one with an early guilty plea.

Canberra's round one clash against the North Queensland Cowboys is only 11 days away. If they put those kind of numbers up in Townsville, fans will be hitting the panic button - as if that should ever be allowed for a club notorious for a late-season run.

There are questions to be answered. Stuart has to settle on a fullback after giving Seb Kris a chance ahead of Rapana to fill the void left by Xavier Savage.

Canberra's spine is also growing accustomed to a new hooker with Danny Levi seemingly the leading option to wear No. 9 ahead of Tom Starling and Zac Woolford.

Do we have all the answers yet? No, but it's not even round one yet. Premierships aren't won in March, and they sure as hell aren't won in February.

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