PAUL Crarey has hailed his Barrow Raiders squad for maintaining an incredible level of consistency against their Kingstone Press League One rivals who have been together for much longer.

The Raiders head coach and his staff almost had to rebuild the side from scratch when they took over ahead of the 2015 season, but only narrowly missed out on the play-offs and – having continued to add players this year - are now firmly in the mix for promotion to the Championship for 2017.

That is thanks in no small part to Barrow's impressive winning run, which now stands at nine games, and Crarey is impressed with how quickly the squad have been able to gel with each when compared to the level of familiarity between their promotion rivals.

“People keep asking me, 'what is the difference?' and we've just become consistent,” said Crarey.

“We've got to know each other's traits – this has been improving since last season with players coming in and bedding in, and a lot of these sides have been together for two or three seasons.

“When Oldham got promoted (in 2015), I think it was four or five years with that squad to get promoted and with the game as it is now, with Toronto coming in next year and the budget they've got, we're nowhere near what they are spending, so there is only going to be one spot and to get that you need a bit of luck, and anything can happen.

“It's really, really tough to get out of this division and until it settles down with everyone on a level playing field, it's going to be really difficult to do.”

Barrow's run has been despite being without key players such as Liam Harrison, Anthony Bate, Andy Litherland and Nathan Mossop for long periods due to injury, while half-back Liam Campbell has been sidelined for much of the season.

But anyone who has been to observe training at Craven Park on a Tuesday or Thursday evening will have seen all of the squad running through drills, game plans and contact work together at all times, which Crarey believes has fostered that understanding between the players – no matter how often they have been featuring on a match-day.

“That's a big thing with how we set the team up,” said Crarey. “Nobody gets left out at training, everybody tags in, so somebody can slot in and play if somebody is missing.

“We don't run drills and take one side away from the other group, and everybody has come in and done a great job for us this season.

“We've got long periods without our big players, but we've still managed to win. We're happy to make the (top) three, which is a massive achievement and I take my hat off to them.

“They've worked so hard as a group and put their bodies on the line, and we are busted up a bit but we've done extremely well.”