Barrow Raiders upset the form book with their brilliant 21-8 win against Halifax at Craven Park last Sunday and head coach Paul Crarey drew inspiration beforehand from some other surprise results from the weekend.

Underdogs London Broncos and Swinton Lions had both caused upsets on French soil the previous day, with the latter's result increasing the Raiders' need for victory if they were to keep up with the teams directly above them in the Betfred Championship.

They went on produce their best performance of the season, as Fax were kept quiet by a ferocious display from Barrow, with Deon Cross scoring two of their four tries.

The win lifted Crarey's side to within one point of third-from-bottom Widnes Vikings and just two away from Dewsbury, who they still have to face on the road next month.

Crarey told Raiders' Youtube page: "What we did was run harder and tackle harder than the opposition and sometimes it's as simple as that.

"They're a quality side who are in the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup and challenging for the top five, but we watched them against Leigh, where the Leigh pack owned the middle and we spoke to our own boys about creating a bit of our own magic.

"We looked at Swinton go to Toulouse and winning there and we looked at London go to Catalans and winning there and we spoke about it being time for us to step up as a group.

"We've got a good side on the park, there were no excuses and everyone of us had a job to do, and I thought we were outstanding, every single one of us."

To say Barrow have had to deal with more than their fair share of adversity this year would be putting it mildly, but the display against Halifax was the most compelling evidence yet that a corner has perhaps been turned.

Crarey said: "What a champion bunch of players we have here. We've just had so much adversity - we've had mental health issues through the year, we've had players banned and we've had long-term injuries.

"But we're such a tight group and nobody seems to break us down, even though sometimes our own fans do it.

"They write stuff on social media, which affects the group, rather than get behind us, but on Sunday when the crowd was behind us, it was just a magnificent place to be."