DENNIS Porter believes Furness Raiders’ younger players have stepped up to fill the void left by the departure of some senior squad members after reaching the final of the Association of Colleges National Cup for the second year running.

The team said goodbye to several experienced players at the end of the 2017/18 College Rugby League season as they were no longer eligible for under-19s rugby, but the latest group of players like Cameron Currie, Max Anderson-Moore and Shane Sanderson have come to the fore.

Established players such as Adam Ford and Charlie Emslie, who both scored two tries in yesterday’s 48-8 cup semi-final win at home to Wyke College, have played a big role too and Furness coach Porter is in no doubt the side have shown their strength.

“We don’t think we’re any weaker this year,” said Porter, who was helping oversee the team in the absence of head coach David Cairns. “We lost some really good lads from last season, but there are some really good young-enders who have come in and stamped a place in the team.

“The lads have worked hard all season. We set our stall out early on to try to get back there again, so hopefully we’ll go one step further and win it this year. That’s yet to be seen, but this performance was a good one from the lads.”

The Raiders have one remaining College Rugby League Premier Division game away to Hopwood Hall coming up, but otherwise the focus is on preparations for the final, which this year is being held at at Featherstone Rovers’ Post Office Road ground in May.

Their opponents will be Wigan Warriors Foundation College, who beat Huddersfield Giants Foundation College 26-20 in the other semi-final played, and Porter was pleased with how Furness played against Hull-based side Wyke.

“There was a lot at stake so there was a bit of nerves and you could see that in the play, but they stuck in, dug deep and got the win,” said Porter.

“We didn’t know a lot about them, we hadn’t heard much about them and were just going off snippets we’d heard from a few people.

“We were just trying to concentrate on what we wanted to do and stop them from playing, but they’ve travelled a long way, they had an overnight stop and they gave us a tough game.”