BARROW Raiders head coach Paul Crarey has praised the spirit of his side after they scored a last gasp drop goal to win 15-14 against York Knights at the Northern Competitions Stadium.

The Raiders came from behind to go into the interval with a slender 8-6 advantage courtesy of touch downs from Ryan Shaw and Max Clarke, who scored on his first home league start for the club.

Crarey asked his side to replicate the first half performance, but they made errors and found themselves 8-14 down with ten minutes to play.

Up stepped full-back Luke Cresswell who managed to break the away side’s resistance in blustery conditions five minutes from time by dummying his way over and under the posts.

Luke Shaw’s conversion levelled the scores for a nail-biting finish, and with just one minute left to play, Brad Walker landed a drop-goal to secure Raiders’ first win of the season.

It comes after Crarey’s side were on the wrong end of a narrow 22-23 one-point defeat in the Cumbrian derby away to Whitehaven last week.

Speaking to the Club website after the match, Crarey said: “I thought we were very good in the first half.

“We knew we had it in us to go and get the win with seven minutes to go. We had a process to turn really hard down the middle and it came off with two minutes to go.

“It was the same kind of performance against Whitehaven last week, but on this occasion we’ve won by a point.

“The ground was buzzing and everyone has gone away happy. It was great to see.

“I’m proud of the players, the fans and proud of us hanging on in there and doing enough to win the game against a very good York team.”