And so the fight for Championship survival just got a lot more difficult for Barrow Raiders with a disappointing defeat against fellow strugglers Dewsbury Rams at the Tetley’s Stadium.

Equal on points before the game, this was obviously a target win but although 20-10 up with 25 minutes left, indiscipline and the inability to hold the big Yorkshire forwards near the try line was our undoing and we eventually lost 40-26.

Like us, Dewsbury had been steadily improving and almost pulled off a win at York last week so a tough encounter was always on the cards, but this was a winnable game in the context of other opponents and the impact of the defeat should not be underestimated.

They are now two points ahead of us with a game in hand and unfortunately that is against basement club Rochdale Hornets, which they should win.

Fellow strugglers Swinton won again versus Batley and now have 14 points which should be enough to survive relegation.

Widnes should be Ok so the new target is Batley Bulldogs, who only have 12 points, three more than us. The remaining fixtures for the Bulldogs are York (h), Leigh (a), Rochdale(a), Dewsbury (h), Toulouse (a), Featherstone (h) and Barrow at Craven Park in the final game of the season.

As for Barrow, we have seven games left starting with the visit of promotion-chasing Leigh Centurions tomorrow. As our chairman said, we need to win at least two games, if not three.

We must go into the game tomorrow with a positive confident attitude based on the fact we beat Leigh last season at home in our best performance of 2018 and only a couple of weeks ago we should have beaten them in the 1895 Cup, only losing 19-18 with a last minute drop goal.

Leigh are not invincible and last week lost at Featherstone. Returning to his previous club, head coach John Duffy said: “I don’t think we deserved to win today. Featherstone wanted it a little bit more and controlled the ball better than us. We were a bit dumb.”

Gareth Hock played last week, but will he be taking part tomorrow following his release from Barrow after being injured in a charity boxing match? Let’s hope so as his appearance should add to the atmosphere.

Another disappointment for the club was the loss of prop Josh Johnson, who has returned to full-time rugby league after signing for Salford Red Devils until the end of the season.

The 24-year-old joined the Raiders in January after being released by Hull Kingston Rovers, with his deal coming with a clause that he would be allowed to move on if a full-time club came in for him.

He was a consistent performer and was beginning to have a big influence on the performance of the Raiders so he will be missed.

Will he be replaced? I hope so, as the chairman said in his column this week that a couple of 'quality' additions are required to give us a better prospect of surviving.

For me, we must do everything possible to stay in this division. Relegation would be a disaster and it’s the wrong time to go down a division with talk of reduced or even no funding for League One clubs in the future from the RFL and inevitably income would be affected from reduced gates and sponsorship.

Through my commentary work with Radio Cumbria, I have seen many League One games this season and it's very competitive, so bouncing straight back will not be as simple as some suggest.

With all the hard work put in both on and off the pitch success is deserved but sport is unforgiving and there are always winners and losers.

Victories against Featherstone and Halifax have proved we can do it and we must go into our last seven games with a positive mindset and play as ‘smart’ as we can.