PAUL Crarey believes there is still more to come from the partnership between Jamie Dallimore and Lewis Charnock after the duo’s impressive start to the season with Barrow Raiders.

Charnock has quickly settled into life at Craven Park after joining from St Helens during the off-season, and has struck up a good combination in the halves with Dallimore.

The 22-year-old has also managed five tries already this year, with two of those coming in the Challenge Cup fourth-round win over Keighley Cougars last Saturday.

Barrow head coach Crarey is pleased to see the pair have come together well for the side, but still feels they can improve even more and is excited by the potential of their partnership.

“They’re starting to complement each other,” said Crarey. “They still need to learn each other’s game because sometimes one overrides the other, but what they both are is winners and we’ve got a lot of winners at the club who are letting us compete and not drop off.

“Sometimes we play on numbers, so we’re just taking wrong options sometimes. Lewis wants the ball in his hands all of the time and there’s nothing wrong with that.

“What we’ve got to do is keep them healthy, so we probably don’t want them to run as much, but when Lewis ran against Keighley he got that first try.

“That’s what we want him to do and not get touched with the ball, and he loves contact. He can probably play at nine as well as he does as a half – he’s a nine-seven rather than a seven-six type of player.”

Crarey is pleased with how two of the club’s more established players are performing their role in guiding the younger members of the squad both on and off the field as well.

“I think our senior players, Ollie Wilkes and Martin Aspinwall, are magnificent for us around the place, how they conduct themselves, and how they bring the young ones on and take time to deal with them,” said Crarey.

“It’s like a lion with its cubs, they pull everyone in line for us and we’ve got a great bunch of people here who want to work hard and don’t make excuses to not do that.

“They make excuses to train rather than not train, so I’m just really proud of them to get the win against a difficult Keighley side who wanted a reaction.”

Raiders will be aiming to continue their impressive start to the season when they welcome perennial Kingstone Press League One strugglers Hemel Stags to Craven Park this Saturday evening.

It is the second of four home games in a row, with the League One Cup quarter-final against Keighley a week on Sunday followed by the first Cumbrian derby of the season against Workington Town on Saturday, April 8.

And Crarey is hopeful the results from Barrow’s first five league and cup matches of the year will encourage more of the town’s population to come out and support them, with attendances for both games so far at Craven Park having both topped 700.

“If we keep producing performances like that, the Barrow fans will get behind us and show us a little bit of faith in us,” said Crarey.

“We can’t do any more than we’re doing at the club and people like Mike Sunderland, who has probably been thrown in at the deep end and took the chairman’s job, are doing a fantastic job.

“But they can’t do any more so they need people to come and catch a game, and support these young players so we can improve what we’re doing.

“We’re through to the next round (of the Challenge Cup), so hopefully there will be some money in the coffers there, but they’re doing the best they can and pushing forward. We’re slowly, slowly clawing our way forwards.”