PAUL Crarey has his eye on several Barrow Raiders hot prospects who could be stepping up to the senior side when they return to pre-season training next month.

The impressive start made by Furness Raiders in the College Rugby League Premier Division, with back-to-back wins over Midlands Hurricanes and Wakefield College, has seen a number of the under-19s prospects come to the fore.

Goal-kicking scrum-half Ryan Johnston, who has already been involved with Barrow's senior side, is one who has stood out in particular.

And, while head coach Crarey is keen to get the Dalton amateur signed up, the likes of Jake Carter and 16-year-old Matty Brown have caught his attention too.

“I've coached Ryan since he was five years of age and he'll be coming in with us,” said Crarey. “I spoke to Dalton about wanting to sign him, but we don't want to take him away from the game.

“Probably this year, he'll get the opportunity to sign for us when he's playing for the college team and when his club football finishes, so we'll bring him in with us.

“At the moment, he's probably the stand-out physically and with his thinking, but there are some other good players who are there or thereabouts.

“What we're trying to promote as well is that attitude is everything with us. We won't have kids with a bad attitude, they've got to have the whole package to be part of the group.”

Part of the approach with the under-19s team, which is being run in conjunction with Furness College, has seen them copy Crarey's blueprint for how the senior team practise and play the game.

He praised Furness head coach Darren Carter for how that has been implemented and was also pleased to see last Wednesday's 25-24 win over Wakefield attract a crowd of 178 to Craven Park.

“I set the programmes for the club in the juniors and they're doing exactly the same as what the first team are doing, and Darren is doing a great job in refining it and getting them to play in that system,” said Crarey.

“It's not easy to do it in one night, but he's doing a great job in that. He gets one night to put all that in and some conditioning with Paddy Maher, and Dennis (Porter) and Dave High are helping him as well, so they're doing a fantastic job.

“The manner the game was won in was outstanding for all concerned and it's something we wanted to do when they came in.

“We wanted to put an academy in place to give kids an option to go down the road or play for us, and there won't be many academy sides getting nearly 200 watching them.”

Furness Raiders are back in action tonight (7.30pm kick-off) when they travel to Tyne Met College, who are the academy side of fellow Kingstone Press League One club Newcastle Thunder.

The Raiders are aiming to continue their unbeaten start and make it three wins on the bounce against a team who have yet to win a game from their opening three matches.