Barrow Raiders head coach Paul Crarey believes Leigh Centurions showed his side a lot of respect by going for goals late in their 19-18 defeat in the quarter finals of the 1895 Cup.

The Centurions had found the Raiders to be a tough nut to crack at St Helens’ Totally Wicked Stadium, with the visitors repeatedly repelling attacks with some hard tackling and players working together to prevent their opponents from gaining yardage.

After Ryan Johnston’s penalty had put Barrow 18-16 up with nine minutes left, Leigh resorted to the boot as they turned the game around in the closing stages.

After missing with an earlier attempt, Martyn Ridyard levelled with a penalty of his own before he fell back to land an expertly-taken drop goal to decide what was a riveting last eight tie.

Crarey said: “It was just a set-for-set, end-to-end game and it was ferocious from both sides.

“I thought we managed their middle really well and managed their edges and it shows respect that when they got a penalty from 40 [metres] out and they went for goal.

“I was sat there thinking ‘if I were them, I’d be running this play because we’re out on our feet,’ but it gave us a lot of respect.

“I spoke to [Leigh head coach] John Duffy after the game and he said the best team lost, so that’s massive respect from them fellas and a few of the press have said that.

“It’s gone now and we’ve got to get ready for what is a massive league campaign, but we’ve come a long way and we’ve set our standards now over the last few weeks and showed we can trouble anybody in this competition.”

A gruelling period of three games in eight days concludes on Sunday when second-placed Toulouse, who are well-rested in comparison, visit Craven Park.

The Raiders will be able to bring in some fresh legs for that game themselves, with none of the suspended Jamie Dallimore, cup-tied Ben White or the rested Martin Aspinwall and Danny Morrow appearing against Leigh.

Crarey said: “We came through the game OK - with Star [Amean] we got the call of the physio that his hamstring was pulling, so we were going to give him ten minutes in the second half and we were going to monitor him.

“As soon as we got the call to get him off, we got him off.

“We’ve had to look after Jono Smith for the last few weeks now because he’s got a problem with his knee, so he started off in the middle [at hooker] and they put a lot of traffic over him.

“Brett Carter then went into the halves and did a really good job - a couple of kicks were a bit strong, but he hasn’t played there for a long time.”