TOM Walker is in line to make his Barrow Raiders bow in the Challenge Cup on Sunday after being dogged with a hamstring injury during pre-season.

The former Warrington Wolves Academy and Workington Town prop is highly-regarded by Raiders head coach Paul Crarey and was one of his main transfer targets during the off-season.

His playing time during Barrow's pre-season friendlies was limited, but Crarey is optimistic Walker will be part of the side to face Rochdale Mayfield, which will feature several changes from last Saturday's League One Cup game against the same opponents.

“Tom will probably play and I'll be looking to play him,” said Crarey. “Again, we'll change up and these two games give us a chance to do that.

“Brad Marwood will play this week and it will give one of the halves or Dan Abram a rest. A few people will play who didn't play last week and we'll look to change things up, but not all of them. Then the league campaign starts and we've got about 22 or 23 fit players.

“Lewis (Charnock) played and he hadn't really run for the last three or four weeks, and did really well. But we brought him off towards the back end because we don't want it (his rib injury) to reoccur. We're lucky to have players we can manage and players who will come in and do an equally-good job.”

Walker's return will give Crarey the opportunity to give either Ollie Wilkes or Joe Bullock a rest ahead of the Kingstone Press League One opener at home to York City Knights on Saturday, March 4.

Andrew Dawson, who was on water-carrying duties as part of Barrow's 19-man squad during last weekend's game at the Mayfield Sports Centre, could feature from the interchange bench this time around as well.

But while Crarey is not underestimating the threats posed by Mayfield – of which he is more aware of following their League One Cup meeting – he is grateful for the opportunity to be able to give players game-time in a competitive situation ahead of the league season kicking off.

“We gave our other lads who don't normally start big minutes, so it was a good little test for us that way where we could do that,” said Crarey.

“There are other games we'll play where we won't do that, so we were happy with the way it went. It's always a worry as a professional organisation to lose out to a professional side and it's happening regularly.

“The amateur game is strong at Conference level and this shows it. It was a really tough, physical encounter and our lads will have some bumps and bruises, but we'll dust ourselves down and get ready to give a few bumps and bruises back.”