A "kick in the guts" has fired up Canberra's forward pack, which plans to throw its ample weight around in an important NRL clash with Wests Tigers.
After being on the receiving end of a 42-16 drubbing by Cronulla in Canberra last week, the Raiders are looking to bounce back and record their first win of the season at GIO Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
"We had a fair challenge against the Sharks' forward pack and we probably failed," lock Luke Bateman said.
"That's definitely a real kick in the guts and something that will fire the boys up for the weekend."
Wade Graham ran riot with a hat-trick while Paul Gallen and Andrew Fifita combined to run 330 metres against the hapless Raiders.
"You never like having a bad game and you never want to put two bad games back-to-back," Bateman said. "Our forward pack are really fired up."
Tigers captain Aaron Woods will lead his side's forwards into battle against the Raiders, who could opt to hand Dave Taylor his NRL comeback.
The former Kangaroos and Queensland representative has been named on the bench in a 21-man squad to be trimmed later in the week.
"It would be great to have him in the team," Bateman said.
"I'm not sure what the team will look like but obviously Dave would be a big inclusion if he gets in there."
Clay Priest's return from an ankle injury which halted his finals campaign was short-lived with a one-week suspension ruling him out of the Sharks game.
He joins Taylor, Sia Soliola, Dunamis Lui, Jeff Lima and Scott Sorensen on the extended bench to face the Tigers.
"(Priest) has got a lot of aggression in him, hopefully he can bring that this weekend," Bateman said.
With the Tim Simona controversy engulfing the Tigers before they were beaten 36-2 by Penrith on Sunday, Raiders fullback Jack Wighton expects the opposition will be out to make a point.
"They'll be coming down here firing," Wighton said.
"It doesn't matter what's going on in camp, they're still going to be strong and that's the way we're going to look at it - as we would be if something was going wrong in our camp."
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