The Newcastle Knights strive to build consistency when they come up against the Canberra Raiders on Sunday at GIO Stadium.
"They have good players across the park and when you look at Canberra three years ago, they were exactly where we are and now they have a team that I think we'd all agree will be a top eight team," coach Nathan Brown said on Tuesday.
"I would think the top four teams would fear playing Canberra because of their attacking prowess.
"They have plenty of good attacking players that cause you threats."
Brown says his young troops are determined to set a regular benchmark for both individual and team performance.
"The thing with us is that we want to get that consistency on the field and that will come with time," he said.
"With so many younger kids trying to learn their trades at once...it's about trying to get that consistency.
"We have come into this period when we have had the bye and then a game last week, a long turn around and then a bye again.
"Fortunately the draw has been kind to us and we have a lot of Saturday and Sunday games in the back end of the year."
The Knights this week will work on their defensive game in training sessions following Saturday's loss to the Dragons.
"All we can do is to keep going through the processes and a lot of it is based around our ruck and a little bit of edge stuff, which is based on a lack of experience and defending certain things against quality players," he said.
"All it is, is practice and video and hopefully the consistency comes in time.
"Some weeks certain individuals do really well and the next week a different individual does well and it's about marrying it up collectively for longer periods of time which is not going to happen over night."
