DAVID Cairns is not paying too much attention to the College Rugby League Premier Division standings as Furness Raiders head into the Christmas break.

The Raiders travel to Salford Red Devils Rising Stars this afternoon for their final match before the college competition finishes for the year, with the 2018/19 season due to resume in the first week of January.

Cairns’ side are in a strong position, sitting right in amongst it at the sharp end with leaders Wakefield College and Halifax Elite Rugby Academy.

But the head coach is more focussed on the development of his players, with one or two works-ons from last week’s match away to Huddersfield Giants Foundation despite the 38-14 win for Furness.

“I’m not too bothered about league tables,” said Cairns. “Somebody the other night said to me we are second in the table, but it’s irrelevant, really.

“It’s just about the games and treating every game as the first game, and taking them as they come.

“It’s just about keeping things going and I want to see some improvement as we were a little bit disjointed last week.”

Cairns’ side were not helped by having to change the team bus on the trip to Huddersfield after their original transportation broke down, but they soon found their groove after trailing in the early stages of the match.

The former Barrow and Great Britain stand-off was buoyed by the fact he had a strong squad to choose from at Huddersfield, with seven interchange players at his disposal.

Aside from Tyler Lancaster, who suffered an injury on England Colleges duty, Cairns has a near-on full squad to choose from for today’s game away to Salford.

It has given him a welcome selection headache, but Cairns admits he is finding it difficult to leave out players.

An example of that is first-year stand-off Max Moore, who impressed against Huddersfield but could miss out to the more experienced Ethan Bickerdike.

“It’s very hard to change things when nobody is playing badly,” said Cairns. “I say this to the lads as well because I’m really conscious of it and I should really stop worrying about it and just pick a side, but I can’t do that. It’s not the way I work and I want to help everybody.

“I want to win games, first of all, but not at all costs. I said to them on the bench last week, when we were in a bit of an arm wrestle, I wouldn’t make any changes until we got the game under control because it is just going to disrupt it again. But once we got another two tries, I could start making more changes.”