Ricky Stuart wants his Canberra side to relax and put a poor month of form behind them as they look to shore up an NRL finals berth against Canterbury on Sunday.

Again admitting the Raiders haven’t played good football since their round-20 bye, the veteran coach insists effort isn’t the issue, despite his team being thoroughly dismantled in a 48-2 thumping by Melbourne last weekend.

Stuart wouldn’t offer an explanation for the poor showing in a vital game in his post-match press conference and was in no mood to address it looking ahead to the Bulldogs clash, simply telling media their execution hadn’t been up to scratch.

“Everyone’s got their own explanation, I’ve got an opinion … it’s certainly not due to effort,” he said.

“It’s certainly not due to the lack of desire or wanting to win and sometimes it can be too much, sometimes you try too hard.

“We’ve had to relax a little bit and think about the shorter term of the game and go set for a set instead of worrying about the back end of the results.

“Execution, both defence and attack, has let us down, we’re playing for certain parts of the game and not for the full 80.

“Our last three or four games we haven’t been in good form and we’ve gonna turn around quickly.”

The Raiders are favourites to beat a Bulldogs team whose wheels have fallen off with four-straight defeats, and simply can’t afford a slip-up with four sides within a game of them in the race for finals.

A loss against Canterbury would leave the sixth-ranked Raiders extremely vulnerable to missing the top eight, with games to come against in-form Brisbane and Cronulla.

Canberra regain veteran Jarrod Croker in the centres just days after he announced his retirement for the end of the season and are hoping he can sturdy their side much like he did when first deployed into the side for a 20-14 win against the Broncos in round six.

Stuart said there was no need to remind his team of the game’s high stakes as they were still in the box seat to play and even host a final if they can turn things around.

“The players know that, they’re aware of it, so it’s not something you’ve got to keep prodding them about,” he said.

“They’re not silly, they know exactly where we’re sitting and everything I’m talking about now, they want.

“They always prepare well, train well, it’s just a matter of transferring our quality of training onto the field.”

By Alex Mitchell in Canberra