Hulme warns opponents to never count Barrow Raiders out

The nature of Barrow Raiders' 30-28 win, which saw the hosts come back from 24 points down in the final 20 minutes to almost snatch victory, proved mentally as well as physically draining.

It does not get any easier for Hulme and his team-mates in the Kingstone Press League One Super Eights, with fellow promotion hopefuls York City Knights up next at home tomorrow afternoon (kick-off 3pm).

But the Barrow centre, who scored two tries last weekend, believes the fact said win felt more like a loss is a sign of the standards being set by the squad and is in no doubt lessons have been learned.

"It was a little bit weird because we'd won the game, but I felt like we'd been beaten," said Hulme.

"For them to come back from such a big margin down to nearly pip us at the end was a bit disappointing, but we've reviewed that at training, we've put that to bed and know where we need to improve this week.

"It's going to be a tough contest and we're going up against a strong York side, who look to be a completely different animal to the team we last played at home.

"It just shows the depth we have in the squad and the ability to get out of situations when things are going against us."

The Raiders have already faced York twice this year, winning the opening game of the league season 28-0 at home and then overcoming the City Knights 50-28 at Bootham Crescent in the Challenge Cup fifth round.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JIxRMMfgdMY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

But James Ford's side are a much-changed side from the previous encounters, with the head coach making judicious use of the dual-registration and loan systems to bolster the squad.

A 28-18 win at home to Workington Town last Sunday saw York strengthen their claims for a play-off place and proved the perfect way for them to respond to a defeat at Keighley Cougars the week before.

"We’d spoken all week about resilience and bouncing back, and our goal-line defence for 15 to 20 minutes was outstanding," Ford told The Press .

"We worked really hard for one another and you could just see the solidarity between the players to work hard for their mates.

"That’s the attitude we’ve got at this club and that’s what we will need for the rest of the season."

Those qualities have undoubtedly aided the City Knights following a turbulent off-season which saw the club on the brink of folding and Ford only able to bring his squad together long after everyone else had returned to pre-season training.

Barrow have shown similar attributes all throughout this campaign as well though, albeit with a team which has been together for much longer and remained stable since the start of the season.

Indeed, the only new recruit who has joined the club since the season got underway is Eze Harper, who had a successful spell on loan with the Raiders last year.

Even in the off-season, transfer activity was limited to Hulme, Tom Walker, Jarrad Stack and Brett Carter signing from Workington, with Lewis Charnock coming in from St Helens as well.

All five quickly bought into the culture at Craven Park and the ambitions of the club, and with the first aim of lifting the League One Cup having long since been achieve, Hulme is determined to ensure nothing stands in the way of securing promotion to the Championship.

"We know where we want to be," said Hulme. "We sat down at the beginning of the year and planned what we want to do and where we want to be at the end of the season.

"One of the goals was to win the cup; we've done that and now we know what we need to do.

"We want to be pushing for promotion, so games like York, especially with other teams around us slipping up – we need to capitalise on that and we need to be winning those games, especially at home.

"We've done it tough, we've come out on top and now we have to dig deep and win these games at home, then we go into Toronto away."