Eaten alive. That's what faces the Canberra Raiders in Melbourne if they reproduce their performance against the Wests Tigers.
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Not even winning their past five games against the Storm in Melbourne is a comfort, with Raiders coach Ricky Stuart saying that will just make it harder against his good mate Craig Bellamy.
Stuart's adamant the Raiders' recent away record against the Storm will be stinging Bellamy and have his former Green Machine teammate bursting a blood vessel to tip the ledger.
It's also a potentially top-four defining game, with the fifth-placed Raiders set to leapfrog the Storm into fourth place on the NRL ladder if they win.
But the Raiders were coming off a shaky 22-18 win over the Tigers that went down to the final play after the siren.
Canberra completed at just 65 per cent, making 14 errors - 10 of which were in the first half.
Stuart said they'd trained well this week, but warned a repeat of that Wests performance would be punished by the Storm.
"We've got to be better than last week. And we are a better team than last week," he said.
"[Our] incompletions - we'll get eaten alive if we don't complete our sets of six like [we did] last week.
"But we've got to be better than that - and we have been all year. Our completion rates have been pretty good this year so that was a one-off for us, but we'll get that right."
The Raiders have become the Storm's bogey team in Melbourne - winning their past five games there, including two finals in 2022 and 2019.
It'd normally be seen as a positive for the Green Machine, who have steeled themselves for trips to Victoria.
But, knowing what makes Bellamy tick, Stuart said it only made the task more difficult.
"It just makes it harder. I know what 'Bellyache' is like. He wouldn't be real happy with our record down there at Melbourne," Stuart said.
"And it just makes it harder for us because I know he'll be working overtime, Craig, but credit to our players.
"We have had some success there in Melbourne and we're preparing well again.
"We've got to get there and it doesn't make it any easier though."
One thing Stuart was happy with from last week was the adaptability of the squad when they lost Sebastian Kris (hamstring) and Nick Cotric (head injury assessment) and were forced to shift middle forwards out to the edges.
There was special praise for Corey Horsburgh, who's on the verge of recommitting to the club until the end of 2027.
Stuart said both Horsburgh and fellow prop Ata Mariota spent time training in the second row as a contingency plan for injuries.
Horsburgh's made the No.13 jersey his own this season, but filled in on the edge for two games this season when Elliott Whitehead was out suspended and injured.
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He played the full 80 minutes against the Tigers after starting at lock and then moving to the edge when Kris went off, running for 109 metres and making 45 tackles.
"Corey and Ata, we do a lot of work with them defending as a backrower," Stuart said.
"Corey played big minutes there last week.
"He did an enormous job last week playing in the middle, moving out to play in the backrow and playing well in that position.
"His utility ability is really good for the dynamic of the squad too."
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