But he's not happy with just playing in a grand final qualifier against the Melbourne Storm on Saturday night – it's "time to reap the benefits of all the hard work".

While Bateman made his NRL debut last year, he's established himself in coach Ricky Stuart's 17 this season and plays an important role in the middle of the park coming off the bench.

He's played 26 games for the Raiders, with his 27th the Green Machine's first preliminary final since 1997.

"I'm excited, 21 years old playing my first real year of first grade, to be playing in a preliminary final you sort of have to pinch yourself sometimes," Bateman said.

"If you had've told me at the start of the year, 'You blokes will be going for a premiership this year' you wouldn't really believe it.

"It's pleasing because we've worked so hard all year to be in this position. It's time to reap the benefits of all the hard work we've done."

Bateman said the Raiders would take confidence out of their round 23, 22-8 victory over the Storm, but that was all.

He said finals footy was a "completely different beast" and he was expecting the Storm to go to another level from their last meeting.

Batement said the lift in intensity from the regular season to the finals "was huge" and had been something that was "hard to understand" until he'd tasted it himself.

"[Melbourne have] got a really big pack, all their forwards are massive boppers and strong boys. In terms of us, and we've talked about this all year, when we play our footy is when we play best," he said.

"We're not worrying about how do we play the Storm, it's how do we play well against the Storm. That's been the big focus this week.

"Finals footy is just a completely different beast and when you put things like premierships on the line it just takes it to a whole other level.

"Teams lift and it just becomes a lot more desperate. While yes we'll take confidence from [our win over the Storm], we won't be thinking we can go down there and beat them again easily."

NRL PRELIMINARY FINAL

Saturday: Canberra Raiders v Melbourne Storm at Melbourne, 7.40pm. Tickets available from Ticketek. Live on Fox Sports 1.

Raiders team: 1. Jack Wighton, 2. Edrick Lee, 3. Jarrod Croker (c), 4. Joey Leilua, 5. Jordan Rapana, 6. Blake Austin, 7. Aidan Sezer, 8. Junior Paulo, 9. Josh Hodgson, 10. Shannon Boyd, 11. Josh Papalii, 12. Elliott Whitehead, 13. Sia Soliola. Interchange: 14. Kurt Baptiste, 15. Luke Bateman, 16. Paul Vaughan, 17. Joe Tapine.

Storm team: 1. Cameron Munster, 2. Suliasi Vunivalu, 3. William Chambers, 4. Cheyse Blair, 5. Marika Koroibete, 6. Blake Green, 7. Cooper Cronk, 8. Jesse Bromwich, 9. Cameron Smith (c), 10. Jordan McLean, 11. Kevin Proctor, 12. Tohu Harris, 13. Dale Finucane. Interchange: 14. Kenny Bromwich, 15. Tim Glasby, 16. Christian Welch, 17. Ben Hampton, 20. Matt White, 21. Felise Kaufusi.