Canberra coach Ricky Stuart has identified a lack of toughness as the reason why the Raiders have failed to evolve from being arguably the best attacking team in the league last year.
The Raiders kept their finals dream alive for at least another week after rediscovering their attacking mojo to drop reigning premiers Cronulla 30-12 on Saturday night.
The win lifts them to within two points of eighth-placed St George Illawarra and ninth-placed Penrith - who play Sunday - with four games remaining in the regular season.
Stuart hasn't given up on squeezing into the finals, but is more focused on his men learning the lessons of what has been a painful season of near-misses.
Eight of their 11 losses this year have been by 10 points or less.
"I reckon this year's been the learning curve for this football team and the squad that they needed to have. How we use that is up to us," Stuart said after the win.
"Last year we got to a situation where it come a bit quick and we hadn't had the experience of playing in tight games.
"We were winning games like tonight and all of a sudden at the start of this year we wanted to win games with this scoreline tonight in every game.
"It's not going to happen in this competition. It's too tough a comp. We found out the hard way, which is where we are at the moment."
Despite scoring in excess of 100 points more than any other team after 26 rounds last year, Stuart insists his team couldn't get rely on getting by on their attacking flair alone.
He said they needed to evolve.
"I said that at the start of the year and everyone laughed at me. I said we're not going to win games by big scores," he said.
"Everyone thought, 'Aren't you going to attack like you did last year?' We can't. We've been hunted by a lot of teams and they've been successful in getting us.
"We've been in a lot of the close games, and we haven't been good enough to win them. We haven't been tough enough to win those close games, which is why we're in a tough position.
"The way we played tonight against a very good team is a learning transition."
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