The NRL is too hard to be giving up games in which you lead 24-10 at half-time. The Tigers did not score again, and if they miss the finals it will be games such as yesterday's that they will look back on and shake their heads.

"No doubt," Sheens said. "We won our first two games and now we've lost three straight. That takes us from going pretty well to being at the back end of the comp. We needed the win and we put ourselves in a position to win and right at the end we still had a chance to win. We've only got ourselves to blame."

Three minutes from full-time, Canberra turned the ball over on their own 30-metre line. The Tigers hammered the try line in the subsequent set, which ended with halfback Mathew Head aiming a grubber kick at the in-goal for the outside backs to chase. But as the Tigers and Raiders rushed for the ball it sat up for Canberra winger Adrian Purtell, who found himself in the clear for a 99m dash to the other end and the clinching try.

It wasn't as if the Tigers didn't know that to make their 14-point lead count they had to keep working hard over the second 40 minutes - and even improve in a few areas.

"We talked about it at half-time," Sheens said. "We knew defence hadn't been our strong point in the first half. Canberra may have only scored 10 points, but we had conceded a lot of yardage. But that [the loss] is what can happen when you lead easily.

"How often do you see it - sides going to sleep? We went to sleep. Our intensity dropped and they came back into the game and once they got momentum we were in quicksand and couldn't get out. It's really disappointing."

Adding to their woes, the Tigers lost one of yesterday's best players - replacement forward Bronson Harrison.

He is likely to be out for eight to 10 weeks with posterior cruciate ligament damage to his knee. Harrison showed tremendous power to crash over for two first-half tries, but was hurt when tackled two minutes into the second half.

Canberra replacement forward Josh Miller is also likely to be out for at least a few weeks with an ankle injury and two more of their bench forwards - Trevor Thurling and Ben Jones - were reported by referee Sean Hampstead for a lifting tackle on Tigers hooker Stuart Flanagan in the 38th minute.

The Raiders have won three of their five games and in each of those wins they managed to keep the opposition scoreless in the second half. The other victims were St George Illawarra and Penrith.

"It was a bit of a heart-stopper," Canberra coach Neil Henry said. "We've been in some tight games this year and the team has shown a lot of character to get out of them with wins. There were no real words of wisdom at half-time. We knew that if we could be patient and control the footy there were points out there for us."