The Warriors are chuffed after opening their 2024 account and bursting Canberra’s bubble with a nerve-racking 18-10 NRL victory in Christchurch.

Six days after blowing an eight-point lead with three minutes left against Melbourne, the Warriors had coach Andrew Webster on the edge of his seat in the dying stages again on Friday night.

Clinging to an eight-point advantage once again, the Warriors did everything possible to invite the Raiders back into the contest with a plethora of errors on their own line.

But Ricky Stuart’s previously unbeaten charges were unable to capitalise as the Warriors notched their first win of the season after heartbreaking losses to Cronulla and the Storm.

The Kiwi outfit blew a 12-0 lead at home against the Sharks before falling victim to Xavier Coates’s miraculous last-gasp try last weekend at AAMI Park.

The hard-earned victory over Canberra starkly contrasted the nine-try spectacle against the Storm, but Webster will take the two competition points however his side earned them. 

“We’ve had two weeks where we’ve sort of played pretty, as in it looked really good at times, and tonight probably didn’t look as good and we got the win,” Webster said.

“Sometimes you get a win ugly, and we still made it hard for ourselves, but I was just really, really rapped for the boys.

“They dug in at the end there, found a way to get it done and I think there’s going to be a huge amount of relief for the boys and we can move on from here, which is cool.”

The Warriors enjoyed much of the first-half running at Apollo Projects Stadium, but only had a 6-4 lead to show for their clear territorial dominance.

Addin Fonua-Blake bagged the Warriors’ only try of the half in the 18th minute after cashing in on a lovely ball from Shaun Johnson.

The powerhouse prop looked certain to grab a second, only for Raiders winger Xavier Savage to pull off a try-saving tackle on the line. 

Jackson Ford then bombed what looked a certain try when he neglected to feed winger Dallin Watane-Zelezniack with the line wide open.

The two near-misses came back to haunt the home side when Canberra centre Matthew Tomoko bumped off Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and Marcelo Montoya to open the Raiders’ account eight minutes from halftime.

The Raiders briefly claimed the lead for the only time of the night through a 54th-minute try to winger Nic Cotric.

But quickfire replies from Metcalf and Tuivasa-Sheck put the Warriors back in front with 15 minutes remaining, and the premiership’s most unpredictable team hung on for an all-important win.

“They were definitely on top,” Webster said.

“I just thought it was a couple of big plays to get us back into it.

“But this is the challenge you want. You want to play in these tough games, like against a really good opposition.

“I thought Raiders brought a great style and tough, tough style of footy tonight.

“But this is what you want to be a part of.”

Stuart agreed, saying Canberra met the tough contest he predicted.

“I didn’t expect anything different,” he said.

“To be honest, and respectful say, I knew we’d be up for a performance.

“I knew we’d be playing a good footy team.

“So that’s the way we prepared and that’s what we got.”