Time is running out for Barrow Raiders to save themselves from relegation from the Betfred Championship and head coach Paul Crarey admits they played like a desperate team at times during their defeat at Swinton last Sunday.

Barrow shot themselves in the foot repeatedly during their 30-12 loss at Heywood Road but coughing up possession from overly ambitious off-loads at times when they still had several tackles in their sets remaining.

Despite this, they still hauled themselves back into contention against the Lions in the second half and were left feeling aggrieved when they had a Tee Ritson try that would have levelled the match controversially ruled out for offside.

The Raiders’ situation wasn’t helped by Dewsbury claiming a 28-28 draw against Halifax and with the Rams playing their game in hand against rock-bottom Rochdale Hornets on Sunday, they are likely to move five points ahead of Crarey’s side with just five games left.

Crarey said: “We’re desperate and at times we played desperate, rather than patient, and tried to score from 50 metres out from off-loads.

“There was then that penalty when it was a six-point ball game and we had the ball in front of our posts and we moved forward and put their marker on the floor.

“That two points made it an eight-point ball game, which is two scores, and we then lost Star [Amean] and they scored off the back of that.

“It’s difficult but we’ll keep battling and we’ve got a week off and I think it would have played this week then we would have struggled to put a side out. We’ll assess our injuries and see where we are for when York come to town.”

The visit of the Knights on August 4 is the first of three home games Barrow have left this season and, realistically, they’re going to have to win all of them if they are to have a chance of hauling themselves out of the relegation zone.

Crarey is torn over whether the week’s break comes at a good time for his team, saying: “We don’t really want it, but we could do with it because we’re busted at the moment with injured players again.

“When Jarrad [Stack] is hurt, he really is hurt and when he went to the doctor’s, they’d thought he’d fractured his collarbone. He’s got a big lump on it and he even wanted to come back on, but we’d lost a sub then and there was no point in risking him, with the lay-off we’ve got.

“We had just the two subs in the second half. We knew we wouldn’t get too much out of Ryan Duffy, but we left him out there for 70 minutes and I thought he was really good in his spell.”