Canberra Raiders coach Neil Henry has named back row enforcer Neville Costigan on the bench for Sunday's clash with the Roosters in a bid to have Sydney's big men tamed.

Costigan ended a 15-week absence from the NRL in the Raiders' 19-12 win over the St George Illawarra Dragons last Sunday.

Canberra rated the win as its best of the year, prompting Henry to yesterday name an unchanged team.

"They've got a few impact players there for sure like [Anthony] Tupou and [Willie] Mason and [Craig] Fitzgibbon's pretty strong through the middle there and [David] Shillington," Henry said. "We'll need to be strong defensively and Neville gives us a bit of that, a bit of punch in our defence."

Costigan aggravated a torn quadricep in the Raiders' round one loss to the Newcastle Knights. Now he's match-fit, he wants to stay that way.

"I'm just trying to get through the games with no injury, I'm not really thinking about the future. I'll let my manager think about that and maybe at the end of the season I'll try and start thinking about that," he said yesterday.

"If I think about it now it'll start affecting my footy, I'll get too worried and my footy won't be that good. [I'm] just trying to block it out.

"This is definitely a good start. I'll try stringing a few games together and things will hopefully happen from there."

Costigan made a huge impact in the small amount of time he spent on the field at WIN Stadium last Sunday.But he admitted he had to become more accustomed to the speed, after playing for three weeks with the Raiders feeder club Souths Logan in the Queensland Cup competition.

"I didn't get much time but I was just happy to be out there," he said. "The Queensland Cup's not that fast, you know, it's pretty cruisy and I definitely felt how fast the game was on the weekend. I just need a bit more game time and I should get that this weekend and I should be sweet for the back end of the season."

Getting more time this week and they are a bit tougher team and it will be a bit more of a challenge this week."

Henry said Costigan's defence and strong ball-carrying skills would be vital against a Roosters outfit desperate to reverse the result from last weekend's upset loss to the Gold Coast Titans.

"He's also got a good carry and an off-load on the edges there," the coach said. "We need that and he certainly needs to build some more game time."Michael Weyman is the Raiders' 18th man and will play for Souths Logan on Saturday before returning on Sunday to be on stand-by at Canberra Stadium.

Meanwhile, Roosters halfback Mitchell Pearce escaped suspension after pleading guilty to a grade-one contrary conduct charge from Friday night's NRL loss to Gold Coast.Pearce was charged for using his knees in a tackle on Titans centre Gavin Cooper.