Ricky Stuart came back to haunt the club he guided to the wooden spoon last year as his Canberra side hammered the final nail in Parramatta’s season with a 33-20 win to snuff out the Eels’ flickering finals hopes.

Trailing 32-6 with 20 minutes remaining, Brad Arthur’s side threw caution to the wind with three unanswered tries but it was a case of too little too late as the Raiders finished a poor campaign on a high with a third successive NRL win.

For the Eels it was a case of what might have been as they failed to build on a stirring come-from-behind win over Manly three weeks ago that catapulted them into the top eight.

Last Saturday’s heavy loss to Newcastle took the Eels’ fate out of their own hands and they needed to beat the Raiders then hope the Warriors lose to Penrith on Sunday to clinch a first top-eight spot since 2009.

The Raiders got off to a flying start when young centre Jeremy Hawkins touched down after Jarryd Hayne knocked on Anthony Milford’s spiralled bomb in front of his own posts.

Chris Sandow’s ninth 40-20 of the season put the Eels in great field position to hit straight back but the hosts defended successive sets and then broke downfield to score a second through Glenn Buttriss.

Jarrod Croker’s penalty stretched the advantage to 14-0 before the Super League-bound Ken Sio cut the deficit with his 12th try in as many games this season.

However, the Eels were guilty of turning off in defence on the stroke of halftime as the giant Edrick Lee batted a Milford bomb to Croker who found Bill Tupou and the former Warriors winger lunged over the line.

Brad Arthur’s side came racing out of the blocks after the restart but were unable to find a way past a determined Raiders defence and to add insult to injury the hosts scored two quickfire tries.

Paul Vaughan powered over in the 51st minute and Josh McCrone in the 56th with Croker adding his fourth and fifth goals of the game to open up a comfortable buffer.

But with his side’s season on the line Hayne took it upon himself to almost inspire an unlikely comeback with a try on the hour mark and then set up Sio for his second a minute later with a fantastic pass.

But crucially Sandow failed to kick the extras for either try from the sideline and although Hayne started and finished the move for his second four-pointer it proved to be his side’s final try of the season.

The Raiders held firm under huge pressure to hold out the desperate visitors before the Brisbane-bound Milford had the final word with a late field goal.