BARROW Raiders coach Paul Crarey has told his players they will have to cut out their individual mistakes if they want to be up among the promotion chasers, writes Pete Wilson.

His warning came following yesterday’s disappointing 18-4 home defeat by Rochdale Hornets at rain-soaked Craven Park.

It was a result that left Barrow struggling in seventh spot and hoisted Hornets to the top of League One.

“It was errors that let us down, 14 this week, 15 last week,” he said. “We are never going to be able to carry out our attacking threat if we carry on like that. We normally allow for six in a game so we are going at more than double that.

“It is only small margins but it is up to them to sort that out. I said to the lads after the game where the 18 points came from and it was from errors; they got two tries from ricochets. You can’t put your foot to the ball to try to control it near your own line. You just have to get rid of it.

“I didn’t think we played too badly. Everybody stayed until the end. It was an enthralling game. It had passion, a few fights, it had everything.

“I thought Rochdale did a good job but we did not exert enough pressure because we did not kick well, we made too many mistakes early in the tackle count.”

The double sin-binning of Lee Haney did not help the Barrow cause and the Hornets came through the series of scuffles that constantly interrupted the game, strangling any hopes of open play before it even got started.

“They came and they lit the firework and we got dragged in, even some of our senior players got involved with looking for revenge; we have got to be above that,” said Crarey. “We have to be smarter than that and not get involved; at times there were up to five of our players at the rucks. There were knock-ons, hands-in, all aimed at slowing things down.

“But we are not blaming that; the blame is with us; they handled the conditions better than us; kicked better than us. We talked about Crook’s kicking game before the match and we had to match it but we didn’t.”

Crarey was also disappointed that the referee awarded 29 penalties – “there shouldn’t be that many in a game at this level” – but it was not all doom and gloom from the Raiders’ boss viewpoint, ahead of next weekend’s home game with York City Knights.

On a positive note, he added: “You can afford to lose two or three games and still be up there because teams at the top will beat each other. But we have got to start improving and cutting out our errors.

“We have to limit ourselves to six a game instead of 14 or 15. We have to think positive. I don’t think we played all that badly, it was all about small margins.”