IT doesn’t get much better than this!

That was the general feeling surrounding Craven Park on Sunday after Barrow defeated 8/11 Championship favourites Leigh Centurions 24-20 in front of a nearly-2,000 crowd (we are getting there!).

I was on BBC Radio Cumbria duty with ex-Raiders chairman Dave Nixon and although the plan was just for regular match updates, with five minutes to go the focus switched to us for full commentary.

Five minutes seemed like an eternity and when the final hooter went I don’t mind admitting that I nearly lost it. It was so emotional and it just felt that this was the culmination of the last three years' hard graft and the reason why we support the club – for moments like this.

It was a magnificent performance, it wasn’t lucky; we totally controlled the second half and even when we went in front from a superb individual try from man of the match Shane Toal with nine minutes on the clock we stayed calm and stuck to the game plan.

The main difference for me is ball retention, hardly any mistakes and an extremely high set completion rate.

A few silly penalties, but only seven conceded throughout the game.

A team who are 500/1 to win the Championship should never beat a team who are 8/11 favourites, so how did it happen?

Leigh are definitely not the force they were when they went on that tremendous run on the road to Super League. All the key players from that side have left; Ryan Brierley went to Huddersfield Giants and then Toronto Wolfpack, and Liam Kay, Adam Higson, Greg Worthington, Bob Beswick, Andrew Dixon, Jake Emmett and Adam Sidlow all followed ex-Coach Paul Rowley to Toronto as well.

Greg McNally has signed for Bradford Bulls and Martin Ridyard has signed for Featherstone Rovers.

They also released quite a few other players following relegation from Super League and then recruited over 20 new players, who I think are taking time to gel as a unit.

But how much time will outspoken Chairman Derek Beaumont give Neil Jukes and his very experienced coaching staff to get it right?

Leigh play Toulouse Olympique tomorrow and that won’t be easy.

As for Barrow, Craven Park is becoming a fortress and we haven’t been beaten at home since May 2016, which is an excellent achievement, and if we can hold Toronto and beat Leigh there is no reason why we can’t stay unbeaten at Craven Park this season. No other Championship side will fancy their chances in Cumbria.

Tomorrow, we go to Batley Bulldogs, who were beaten by Leigh a couple of weeks ago, 34-6, but bounced back last week with an impressive 48-28 victory at Swinton.

It’s their first home game of the season on the famous slope and we have always struggled to get a result at Mount Pleasant. They always assemble a big pack and have a couple of game changers at half-back in Dominic Brambini and Pat Walker, who we need to manage.

Our mind-set has been somewhat different on the road over the last few seasons, too much indiscipline and too many handling errors and general mistakes, so that has to change in this league and we must adopt the same game plan we deploy at home if we are to beat teams like Batley.

The Bulldogs aren’t world beaters ,and if we replicate our Toronto and Leigh performances there is no reason why we can’t come away with two precious points. Have we the mental and physical ability to win on a consistent basis?

From what I have seen so far, I think we have and with Lewis Charnock, Danny Morrow, Andy Litherland and Luke Cresswell waiting in the wings, we also have good competition for places should those picked don’t deliver.

As Paul Crarey said in his post - match interview: “Let’s keep our feet firmly on the ground and take one game at a time.”