PAUL Crarey wants to see Barrow Raiders apply the lessons learned from their pre-season opener when they tackle Whitehaven in this Sunday’s Cumbrian derby.

The Raiders were beaten 24-10 by Oldham last Sunday in their first hit-out of 2019, although were without the likes of Martin Aspinwall, Nathan Mossop and Dan Toal due to minor injuries.

Although it was a mixed performance, head coach Crarey was still able to take positives from the match and is in no doubt his team will be able to improve on that when Whitehaven come to Craven Park.

“The players know that and they told me when they walked off how disappointed they were, and Oldham were signing in the changing room,” said Crarey.

“But, to me, it’s a friendly and we’ve learnt so much from past friendlies when we’ve got all-out and played our best players and picked up injuries, but we’re not in the market to do that this year.

“We can’t afford players to get injured, but we’ll unleash them against Whitehaven and we’ll improve week on week for the Wigan game, then we’ll hit the season and hopefully we’ll have no injuries when we get there and we’ll be ready to go for Batley.”

New signings Deon Cross, Tee Ritson, Jake Spedding and Jordan Walne all got their first run-outs for Barrow against Oldham, while rookie professional Jake Carter and under-19s Adam Ford and Charlie Emslie featured too.

In addition, Papua New Guinea internationals Stargroth Amean, Wartovo Puara Jr and Willie Minoga are in line to play some part against Whitehaven this weekend and Crarey has cautioned it will take time to get everyone integrated into their systems.

“For me, it’s a learning curve for this group of players and we’ve got so many new players and young lads, it was always going to be a difficult fixture against a hardened Oldham team,” added Crarey.