PAUL Crarey is facing a selection quandry as Barrow Raiders prepare to head to Canada for this weekend’s top-of-the-table clash with Toronto Wolfpack in Kingstone Press League One.

Injuries suffered by Andy Litherland, James Duerden and Lewis Charnock in the Challenge Cup defeat to Leeds Rhinos were due to be assessed at training last night, as were those players who were ruled out of the 72-10 loss at Headingley.

There is also the need for the players to see if they can book days off from their full-time jobs and arrange visas, with the need for head coach Crarey to name a 19-man squad in time to fly out on Thursday complicating preparations.

“It’s difficult because we have to name a team early in the week for the lads to take the time off work,” said Crarey.

“Toronto are a full-time team, so we had to bring everyone in yesterday, assess what we have got, pick some players on a wing and a prayer who might come through, and hopefully lads can get time off work.

“At the moment, the lads are applying for visas and things like that, so it’s a bit up in the air what type of team we can take there. Hopefully we can get bodies back, we’ve had the physios in and a rehab session, so hopefully we can take a really competitive side to Toronto.”

Among those players possibly in line for a return against Toronto are centre Declan Hulme and skipper Ollie Wilkes, who has had an injection on his knee to help get him ready to face the League One leaders.

Wilkes’ experience in particular will be invaluable to the Raiders squad when they take on a full-time side stacked with familiar names, including ex-Leeds prop Ryan Bailey and former New Zealand and Tonga international Fuifui Moimoi after both were granted visas.

Indeed, Crarey believes being star-struck by some of the big names they were up against contributed to Barrow’s sluggish start against the Rhinos on Sunday, where they found themselves 22-0 down after 18 minutes before rallying.

“Sometimes when you’re playing, you don’t notice the crowd first,” said Crarey. “It’s probably the players they were in awe of, not the crowd; they’re playing against players they’ve seen on TV and things like that.

“In the changing room at Leeds, we had Martin Aspinwall, who nothing fazes. I knew he was ready for that game and the lads have got to learn off what he does.

“We could have probably played Ollie Wilkes and Declan Hulme at a push, but we didn’t want to lose the squad for what will be a big game for us – and then we’ve got the League One Cup final the week after that. It was about us managing the squad and not taking too big a hit at Leeds because I don’t think we were realistically going to win with the side Brian (McDermott,, the Rhinos head coach) put out.”

The defeat at Leeds ended Barrow’s 13-game unbeaten start to the 2017 and Crarey believes there are several lessons they can take into the upcoming matches from the clash with the Super League giants.

Chief among those is improving game management on such big occasions, particularly for the match against Toronto which pits the top two in League One against each other and is expected to see another four-figure crowd in attendance at Lamport Stadium.

“We probably could have got out of Leeds conceding less than 50 points and that’s the big thing for me,” said Crarey. “If it would have been less than that then I would have been a lot happier.

“I’m not knocking the kids for that, but it’s about managing the game and sometimes not playing for yourself.

“If the middle are pulling people down and they’ve come 70 yards on a yardage set, all we’ve got to do is knock the ball into touch, we get a minute at the scrum and it’s a controlled restart. If we drop it on their back three, they’ll punish us and that’s what we did.

“It’s sometimes about sticking to it, not getting bored with being boring and just sticking to the process, and if we do that in the big games we’ll come out on top. If we don’t do that, it will cost us.”