FITTINGLY, it was one of Canterbury's young guns that scored the opening try, but it wasn't enough in their 12-10 National Rugby League trial loss to Canberra in Port Macquarie on Saturday.
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When nineteen-year-old winger Jake Averillo crossed untouched in the corner after just five minutes, the crowd had barely taken their seats.
Back-rower Adam Elliott revealed his teenage teammate was almost out of his when the team bus pulled in to Regional Stadium about 90 minutes earlier.
"We drove in on the bus and Jake was behind me and I saw his eyes light up," Elliott said.
"He hasn't played NRL yet so he hadn't had a taste of coming out to a country town and being able to see how much people get around games like these."
While there was no official crowd figure released, the turnstyles would have shown more than 4000.
While that attendance number appears small compared to a regular season game in the NRL, Elliott said it was important they continued to bring trial games to the bush.
"The amount of people that turn up in Sydney ... you would play a trial game (there) and you don't get this many people turn up," he said.
"It's something different for the people in the country and we know how much they appreciate us getting out here."
The Bulldogs jumped out to an early 10-0 lead inside 10 minutes after prop forward Dylan Napa joined Averillo on the scoresheet, but the Raiders slowly clawed their way back into the contest.
Five-eighth Jack Wighton opened their account in the 25th minute when he backed up a Josh Papalii break which was started by a Joe Tapine offload.
Halfback Sam Williams then sliced through in the 67th minute to put the 2019 NRL grand finalists in the lead for the first time which they held onto.
Raiders captain Jarrod Croker managed to see out 60 minutes of the match before he was given an early mark by coach Ricky Stuart.
"I had a few carries, got belted around a bit and got a bit of a cork on my hand but nothing to worry about," he said.
Croker admitted the Bulldogs started the match with more intent and he was pleased with the way his side managed to turn it around after their rusty start.
"I don't know the stats, but we wouldn't have completed many of our first five or six sets," he said.
"We put ourselves straight on the back foot and the Bulldogs were good enough to take advantage of that.
"We had to turn it around pretty quick because it can get pretty ugly pretty quickly and the boys worked hard on the little things.
"We got back to doing the basics like holding the ball and we got better as we went on."
The Raiders open their 2020 NRL campaign on March 13 when they host Gold Coast while the Bulldogs travel to Bankwest Stadium to tackle the Eels on March 12.
