Canberra players used to talk about it like it was a badge of honour.
The St George Illawarra squad regularly discussed the journey to the nation's capital as the road trip from hell.
Tonight the Dragons will chase a club record-equalling eight successive NRL victories, but will need to smash another long standing mark - they haven't won at Canberra Stadium since 2000.
Full coverage of The St George Illawarra DragonsFormer Canberra captain Simon Woolford, who spend the final two years of his career at St George Illawarra, claims both clubs are well aware of the hold the green machine have over the Red V. It's an impressive statistic for the Raiders, who have won eight of their past nine against the Dragons.
"During my two years (with St George Illawarra) it was always talked about, the fact that the Raiders had had the wood over the Dragons over the years," Woolford said.
"I played the Raiders four times while I was at the Dragons and it was always talked about that they were a team that we struggled against.
"A lot of emphasis was put on beating the Raiders, but we went down to Canberra twice and never looked like winning in either game.
"And they beat us up at WIN Stadium last year pretty easily, too.
"I know playing for the Raiders we were always confident of beating the Dragons, that's for sure.
"We always thought that if we hung in the game and things didn't go their way early we knew we were always still in with a big chance.
"That's always the way it turned out - we always started well against them and we were just willing to grind out a game of footy more so than they were."
St George Illawarra's last triumph in Canberra came in round 22 of the 2000 season, when Raiders coach David Furner was still playing.
But the hoodoo isn't restricted to the cooler climes of the ACT.
Last year the Dragons were shooting for eight successive wins during a sensational mid-season surge, only to be flattened 19-12 by a determined Canberra team at WIN Stadium.
The stranglehold rivals the Melbourne Storm's domination of the Dragons for the best part of the decade, before St George Illawarra buried it with a 26-12 win at Kogarah a fortnight ago.
Woolford, Canberra captain Alan Tongue and former Raiders prop Michael Weyman - now with St George Illawarra - all agree that there is something very different about tonight's match-up.
Weyman and Queensland enforcer Neville Costigan will return to play in Canberra for the first time since leaving the club to join the Wayne Bennett revolution in Wollongong.
The 24-year-old prop has had a stellar season with the Dragons and it was rewarded when he represented NSW in this year's State of Origin series, having struggled for form and fitness during his time with Canberra.
Weyman said the Dragons were unconcerned about creating a slice of history by equalling the club record of eight straight wins.
"Eight in a row - I didn't even know that," Weyman said when asked about the record.
"The best thing about us is we take it week-by-week - it's the easiest way to approach a game. You don't get too far ahead of yourself and you don't look back at the past either."
Tongue acknowledged that the ladder leaders and raging premiership favourites have discovered a hard-nosed edge about them this year.
"This is a different Dragons outfit," Tongue said. "It's good to have that record, but it doesn't mean too much and we haven't talked about it, because we realise this is a different sort of side."
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