BARROW Raiders head coach Paul Crarey has no doubt that his squad are committed to the cause.

In fact, they are prepared to go the extra mile to help the Cumbrians to success.

Crarey explained: “We’ve got a special group this year. It’s no secret that our budget was cut massively.

“And lads like Jarrad Stack, who is the captain, and Ryan the goal-kicker have taken big pay cuts for this club to keep going and stay in the Championship and put a team together on a budget.

“If they hadn’t done that it would have been impossible to bring in the players we have.

“So, credit to them for not thinking about themselves and digging their heels in.

“Andy (Gaffney, Director of Rugby at Raiders) spoke to them and there was no kicking and screaming, it was ‘yeah let’s help the club’.

“The players we have got in, I know they care. We have evolved so many times as a club because of the turnover of players and I believe this side is a very, very good well-balanced side.

“And we are full of lads who really care about what they are doing and care about the club.

“We are a family at Barrow and I think that says a lot about what we are trying to do and what we are looking to continue to create.”

And it isn’t just the players who were already at the club who wanted to give their all for Raiders.

“James Greenwood contacted us and said he wanted to come to us,” explained Crarey.

“Matty Costello had a meeting with York and he phoned me up on the way home and said I would like to come into Barrow.

“These players have been here before (on loan) and the fact that they wanted come back shows that people want to play here and we are doing something right.

“Our location doesn’t make it easy, sometimes to bring one player in we need to bring in 10.

“We’ve been down the route of flying people over to play, but there is a central contract for those players and we have to find for them a certain amount of money.

“What we’ve done this time is we have got some players coming down the motorway on a minibus to training and games, and the players have bought into that.

“Everyone at the club right across the board is working hard to make sure we give a good account of ourselves this season.

“First and foremost we are looking to stay in the Championship. Of course, we want to establish ourselves as a good Championship club, but no one is taking anything for granted.

“As soon as you start taking things for granted you can slip through the trap door, and we aren’t going to allow that to happen.”