WHAT a draw!

Oxford at home on Sunday, April 30 in the League One Cup semi-final and victory means a day out to Bloomfield Road, the home of Blackpool FC, for all the loyal Barrow Raiders supporters at the RFL's Summer Bash on Saturday May 27.

The League One Cup final kicks off at noon as a prelude to a jamboree of Championship rugby, with six games being played over the weekend.

Now I don’t want to put the mockers on the team and no disrespect to Oxford, but if I have to cancel the mini-bus I have just ordered and lose the deposit someone at the club will have to pay as a punishment for allowing the biggest shock in rugby league history. It’s a bit like Iceland beating England at football (That didn’t happen, did it?).

There are no easy games, but if Barrow play with the same mind-set as if they are playing Toronto Wolfpack, there will only be one winner. From one to 17 we have a far superior squad of players and I can’t see Oxford having the armoury to stop us.

However, Oxford are definitely improving and their victory against London Skolars last week was a bit of a surprise. Josh Atkinson scored a hat-trick of tries in their 24-20 win, his third coming in the last minute.

They have had an impressive few weeks; they defeated Coventry Bears 30-28 in the League One Cup, were triumphant against South Wales Ironmen in the Ladbrokes Challenge Cup and kicked off their Kingstone Press League One season with a 40-12 win over Hemel Stags.

They also put up a reasonable show away to Whitehaven in the Challenge Cup three weeks ago before losing 46-14.

Their coach is Tim Rumford, who was previously head of the Castleford Tigers academy and assistant coach at Gateshead Thunder, along with having playing spells at Castleford, York and Hunslet. So he has plenty of experience and he seems to be moving Oxford in the right direction.

The other good news was that there were also surprises in the other two quarter-final games, with Gloucestershire All golds beating Workington at Derwent Park and North Wales Crusaders pipping Newcastle Thunder at Kingston Park.

The All Golds now host Crusaders in the other semi- final and we will play the winner at Blackpool. I think it’s time for the club to invest in some silver polish!

Barrow’s performance against Keighley was first-class and a hard-earned victory against an aggressive outfit.

Referee Nick Bennett from Sheffield was a busy bee and his use of the whistle was not conducive to free flowing rugby.

I don’t think we will have too many competitive games this season, but Keighley away at Cougar Park on May 14 will be one of them.

Cumbrian derby games are always competitive and tonight will no doubt be any different. Workington Town come to Craven Park on the back of that surprise defeat against the All Golds last week. Successful ex-Raiders coach Dave Clark is back in town and that adds an interesting dimension to this game as he picks his wits against old mentor Paul Crarey.

Clark was very disappointed after last week’s defeat and said: “I know the players are hurting, but we needed something like this to make us learn from it,” and says his team will come to Craven Park with a fresh mind-set.

Barrow need to put all this cup excitement to one side and focus on the main prize: Promotion to the Championship.

It should be a classic tonight – you don’t want to miss this!