Last updated at 11:52, Saturday, 23 June 2012

ALTHOUGH we came away from Halifax with a defeat, we certainly let them know they had been in a game.

In the last few weeks they have inflicted bigger defeats on rival Championship sides, including Featherstone, so last Sunday’s effort was pretty good.

It was just a shame they got a couple of late scores as a 20-point margin would have been a fairer reflection of the game.

Last Sunday we had three debutants, Brad Brennan and Ben Harrison look-a-like Ryan Duffy, from Warrington, and Brad Marwood.

The Warrington boys added good go-forward and aggression in the middle, while Brad Marwood gave good distribution to our half-backs.

Apart from playing in the nines for Cumbria, Brad has had little rugby since the Northern Rail Cup group games, but has been training well and waiting patiently for his chance. All three can be very satisfied with their first contribution in a Barrow shirt, which is good for us as there is further competition.

Some quarters have questioned the club’s use of dual-reg players – some are claiming Holty has been totally against the system in the past, which isn’t entirely the case.

Both myself and Holty felt the club hadn’t necessarily looked around the local scene and given many players a chance, something I’d like to think we have encouraged this year with us having over 20 locally-based players in the squad.

When we were down to 14 fit players last week, we could easily have raided local clubs for a handful of players. These players would have got game-time for a couple of weeks, but as our injured players came back there would have been a chance they would spend time in the stands and not play again.

In turn, the junior clubs would accuse us of just using their players, causing bridges to be burnt. Whereas, if the Warrington lads don’t play for us they just stay with their parent club and play under-20s, so no-one is losing out. Sometimes though, you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

Long-term absentee Andy Litherland reported back to the club last week after his operation on a knee injury.

Andy was due to make his official debut at Whitehaven in the Northern Rail Cup back in March, but had a freak accident in the warm-up, causing him to make possibly the shortest debut in history. His medical reports have come back saying there wasn’t too much damage caused, so it shouldn’t be too long before Livvy can start his rehab.

With Livvy being a big soccer fan, I can imagine his surgeon has told him not to get in the gym in the evening until after the Euros have finished!

First published at 10:37, Saturday, 23 June 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk