BARROW Raiders half-back Brad Walker has admitted there’s still a lot of hard work ahead.

Raiders made it three wins out of three in pre-season with a 32-18 win over North Wales Crusaders at the weekend.

Walker was pleased with the result, but says everyone knows that they are yet to reach peak performance.

Speaking to the club’s official Facebook page, he said: “It was good to get the win.

“We’re a bit rusty and we are still working on combinations, so it’s always going to a bit rusty second game of the year.

“But I thought we went well.”

For the second weekend running, the half-back was named as man-of-the-match, but he was quick to pass his praise on to his team-mates.

He added: “I thought I didn’t really deserve man of the match.

“I thought one of the middles did because doing 80 minutes in a game like this is pretty tough to do.”

Raiders were far from full strength against Crusaders and head coach Paul Crarey was forced to mix and match somewhat.

And while Walker acknowledged that wasn’t ideal, he believes it could stand them in good stead going forward.

He said: “There’s a lot to work on. I think there are going to be times this season when we are low on numbers, so we are probably going to play in positions where we don’t want to, or we don’t really know.

“Playing games like this one does help for later on in the season if things do happen like that.”

Raiders face Hunslet in their final pre-season clash this weekend before taking on local rivals Workington Town in the AB Sundecks 1895 Cup a week later.

And Walker is eagerly anticipating both encounters.

He said: “I’m looking forward to it (Hunslet) and hopefully it is another tough challenge.

“Like Cresta (head coach Crarey) said I thought this game was a lot harder than last week against Rochdale, so hopefully this week is tough as well.

“There’s more learning curves for us and then on to Workington and hopefully start with a win.”