He hopes a big crowd can impact the Richter scale against the Penrith Panthers at Canberra Stadium on Sunday, as the Green Machine continues to buck the trend of embarrassing NRL crowds.

The Raiders have won three in a row, while the Panthers come in on a six-game streak, but they need to win their last three to make the top eight after going into the weekend two wins behind three teams - Penrith, Manly and North Queensland.

They came in as one of the premiership favourites, but have struggled to live up to expectations before hitting their straps in recent weeks.

Stuart felt they'd fallen into the trap of playing the way people wanted them to play - trying to blow teams off the part like they did regularly last season - instead of playing how they needed to in order to win.

Ironically, off the back of that switch in focus they've looked more likely to blow teams off the park.

The Raiders were guilty of a lot of errors and turning over the ball cheaply in the first half of the season, which put them under pressure defensively.

But they've paid a lot more respect to possession over the last month, with their big forward pack starting to dominate like everyone expected them to from the start.

That's in turn allowed their playmakers a bit more room and made their dangerous outside backs harder to stop.

"We didn't have the right attitude with the football. For too long we were trying to be that team everybody wanted us to be, more so than being disciplined with the football and having an attitude of wanting to find a way to win more so than blow teams away," Stuart said.

"Now we've got a more patient and tougher mindset in regards to getting into the grind."

The Raiders are looking like getting a crowd of about 15,000, which would be their biggest home-and-away crowd against the Panthers at Canberra Stadium since 1995.

It means they'll have a bigger crowd at their game than the Thursday and Friday night games at ANZ Stadium combined, where just 6826 turned up to watch Parramatta-Gold Coast and 6213 for South Sydney-New Zealand Warriors.

The Raiders are continuing to buck the trends of crowds and are one of the few teams whose crowds have increased this season.

They'll have scientific evidence of that from Sunday's game, when the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences will use a seismometer, which normally measures earthquakes, to measure the Viking clap.

"In these types of games the crowd can be such a great assistance and weapon. There's nothing better than playing in front of a packed crowd," Stuart said.

"The one thing about our Canberra fans this year is we've probably bucked the trend a little bit because we've been very consistent in building our numbers.

"You see at the moment there's a lack of support for a number of games, which is really disturbing."

Depending on how his players pulled up from Saturday's captain run, Stuart was expecting the same 17 to take the field against the Panthers as beat the Warriors and Sharks.

They've had a lighter training week following their trip to Auckland, with Stuart putting an emphasis on having his players fresh physically and mentally for the crucial clash.

He said having a bye following their loss to the Panthers in Bathurst, when they let in two tries in the last two minutes, played a part in his players struggling mentally in the following month.

"I found it hard to get the boys up after the last game [against Penrith] for three or four weeks, but the hard part about that was we went into a bye after that game so it gives you a bit more time to think about it, which is probably not a good thing," Stuart said.

"We haven't spoken about the last game as a group. We all know the match is important in regards to winning."

NRL ROUND 24

Sunday: Canberra Raiders v Penrith Panthers at Canberra Stadium, 2pm. Tickets available from Ticketek.

Raiders want: Cronulla to beat the Cowboys on Saturday and Canterbury to beat Manly on Sunday.

Raiders: 1. Jack Wighton 2. Nick Cotric 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. Joe Tapine 13. Elliott Whitehead. Interchange from: 14. Kurt Baptiste 15. Clay Priest 16. Dave Taylor 17. Luke Bateman 18. Michael Oldfield 19. Jeff Lima.

Panthers: 1. Dylan Edwards 2. Josh Mansour 3. Tyrone Peachey 4. Waqa Blake 5. Dallin Watene-Zelezniak 6. Matt Moylan 7. Nathan Cleary 8. James Tamou 9. Sione Katoa 10. Reagan Campbell-Gillard 11. Corey Harawira-Naera 12. Isaah Yeo 13. Moses Leota. Interchange from: 14. Tyrone May 15. Bryce Cartwright 16. Tim Browne 17. James Fisher-Harris 18. Trent Merrin 19. Dean Whare.