By Alex Mitchell in Canberra

CANBERRA coach Darrin Borthwick says it’s “scary” how good his in-form side can be if they keep up their current trajectory, as the Raiders search for a fourth-straight victory when they face Parramatta in round five.

After an opening-round defeat at Cronulla, life in the NRLW could hardly have progressed better for Canberra.

They sit third on the ladder, with superstar co-captains Simaima Taufa and Zahara Temara first and second respectively on the Dally M leaderboard.

It’s not all been plain-sailing, though, with Borthwick less than impressed with a second-half fadeout and some key errors against St George Illawarra last weekend.

What should have been a comfortable win – they were 18-6 ahead at halftime – instead required Temara to slot a field goal in golden point to secure victory.

Borthwick paid credit to the attitude of his emerging side, saying the players knew battling to scrappy wins would not be good enough to compete for a title in their first season.

“They turn up every week wanting to get better, they’re not happy with just scraping through,” he said.

“That’s something that the group keeps talking about, that we want to get better … if we do that, we’ll figure at the back end of the year for sure.

“We spoke last week that we could be our own weakness, and it’s probably shown that a little bit in the last couple of weeks with a few errors that were made at crucial times.

“It is scary to think that if we eliminate those from our game, just how good we could be.”

Lock Taufa starred with 195-metres gained and 42 tackles in last weekend’s win over the Dragons, while playmaker Temara has been responsible for much of the side’s attacking flair.

“They’ve been terrific,” Borthwick said.

“The thing that we wanted to do here was put some girls around them as well that would relate to the values and the systems in place.

“The whole squad, the 28 players, have all reacted to it and we’re getting along nicely at the moment.”

Parramatta have had a tough start to the campaign and will be searching for their maiden win when they go up against the Raiders on Sunday.

Fellow expansion clubs North Queensland and Cronulla face off in Townsville on Saturday, before Wests Tigers continue their finals push against the Dragons.

The match of the round pits Gold Coast (3-1) against the league-leading Sydney Roosters, while in-form Newcastle take on Brisbane on Sunday.