THEY may have leaked five unanswered tries at the back end of the game but a scintillating, 34-point, first-half performance was enough to see the Canberra Raiders claim a six-point victory over the Newcastle Knights at Orange's Wade Park on Saturday night, in front of 7,588 fans.

It was more than enough to give even the most blindly optimistic green machine fans hope in 2016 too, especially considering the Raiders were without five-eighth Blake Austin and fullback Jack Wighton.

Led by English hooker Josh Hodgson and 2016 recruits Aidan Sezer and Elliot Whitehead the Raiders piled on six tries to one in the first half, in fact, they scored all 34 of their points inside the first half hour.

Newcastle fought back in the second half, but when it counted - while the two sides had their strongest sides on the paddock - the Raiders were a class above, after that both sides rolled out their younger, less experienced squad members.

"You always need to tweak a little bit after trial matches and we'll do that," Canberra coach Ricky Stuart said.

"It's always pleasing when you control the footy and [execute] the little pieces of play well.

"I thought we did that really well in the first half. In the second half, we were awful.

"But it's only a trial match. We were shocking in our first trial last year and then we won our first game. So we'll put our heads down and work hard for the next two weeks."

Hodgson was superb in the opening period as he laid on a try and consistently exposed the Knights from dummy-half while Sezer and Whitehead, in their club debuts, looked as though they'd been playing with their new teammates for years.

"[Hodgson] was very good and I think a 40 minute hit-out for him was enough," Stuart said.

"It was good (how Sezer slotted in). A number of boys fitted in well, I thought Elliot and Joey (Leilua) were good on that right edge too."

Canberra winger Jordan Rapana opened the scoring in the seventh minute on the back of a beautiful in-and-away and flick pass from former Knight Leilua, before Newcastle were shut down a minute later in what would be their only scoring opportunity until the 36th minute.

In fact, after Dane Gagai was pulled up short the Knights didn't even have an attacking set for 16 minutes straight.

First Hodgson put Cowra-born prop Shannon Boyd over in the 14th minute then fullback Sisa Waqa barged over a set-and-a-half later - both tries came on the back of spilled kicks by Newcastle custodian Jaelen Feeney.

It only took another two minutes before Rapana scored his second after Sam Williams' kick rebounded straight into Whitehead's arms, before he put the flying winger over in the right corner.

Sezer sent back-rower Josh Papalii over four minutes later with a short ball at the line before Leilua capped off a stunning period of play for the Raiders with a try of his own, breezing through some wafer-thin defence on Newcastle's right edge.

With skipper Jarrod Croker's five conversions the Raiders were up 34-nil, with 10 minutes remaining in the first half.

Finally though, Newcastle saw some ball and they somewhat made it count when halfback Trent Hodkinson - easily the Knights' best - sent Feeney over in the dying stages of the half.

It signalled some fight from the Knights, which continued in the second half as Hodkinson set up two more tries for Lachlan Fitzgibbon and Akuila Uate in the early stages.

Although, by then, Stuart had rolled his entire bench onto the paddock.

While Newcastle's younger brigade trampled all over Canberra's - Chanel Mata'uita and Brock Lamb also crossed in the second period - Knights coach Nathan Brown didn't hide his feelings after the game.

"Obviously the start to the game was just not acceptable," Brown said.

"We'll have to work our why we started like that. Starting games and getting on the front foot like Canberra did, that's how you win games.

"It's a good lesson for us, it is only our first hit-out together and I was very confident our attack would work well once we got good field position, which it did.

"But Newcastle's issue over the past 10 or 12 years has been defence, and tonight our issue was defence."

CANBERRA RAIDERS 34 (Jordan Rapana 2, Shannon Boyd, Sisa Waqa, Josh Papalii, Joey Leilua tries; Jarrod Croker 5 goals) def NEWCASTLE KNIGHTS 28 (Jaelen Feeney, Lachlan Fitzgibbon, Akuila Uate, Chanel Mata'uita, Brock Lamb tries; Trent Hodkinson 3, Lamb goals)