This is it; the five most important games of Barrow Raiders' season, starting with second placed York City Knights tomorrow at Craven Park.

To survive in the Championship our most realistic chance is to win all of our remaining home games; after York tomorrow its Bradford Bulls next week and Batley on the last day of the season.

Dependent upon the results of our fellow strugglers, even if we were to win all of those games, we may have to get a victory at one of our two away games against Sheffield Eagles and Toronto Wolfpack.

Widnes, who reached the 1895 Cup final at Wembley last week with a fabulous win at Leigh, are on 12 points, three ahead of us with games to come against Toulouse and Swinton at home and Sheffield, Leigh and Dewsbury away.

Batley are on 13 points and the remaining fixtures for the Bulldogs are Rochdale away tomorrow, Dewsbury (h) ,Toulouse (a) , Featherstone (h) and Barrow (a); an easier set of fixtures than Widnes and an expectation that they should beat Rochdale and Dewsbury.

Dewsbury unfortunately won at ‘relegated’ Rochdale last week and now have 14 points. Their last five games are against Featherstone (h) tomorrow and then Batley (a), Bradford (h), Toulouse (a) and Widnes (h). Theirs is perhaps the hardest run in, so if we can get 15 points (three wins) there is some hope.

All four clubs in the relegation dogfight have difficult fixtures and anything can happen. If we won all five games, we would probably survive the drop so we must go for it and reproduce the recent victories against Featherstone and Halifax.

York have been the surprise package and have had a superb season since their promotion from League One and currently sit second with 31 points. This is an incredible achievement, considering a couple of seasons ago they were on the verge of going bust.

Chairman Jon Flatman and head coach James Ford deserve tremendous credit for the resurgence of York with the majority of last season’s squad on a limited budget with a possibility of playing in their new community stadium in the Super League

They beat Bradford Bulls 25-24 a fortnight ago with a last-minute drop goal, but the week before Batley gained a point with a 14-14 draw after beating them in the 1895 Cup a couple of weeks earlier, so, they are not invincible.

However, we must be at our very best with improvement in discipline key to giving ourselves a chance. It’s time for all the players to step up to the mark and head coach Paul Crarey must give the team-talk of his life.

There is a lot at stake and the biggest hit will be the financial impact because if we do get relegated there will be £130k deficit in RFL funding for being in League One, compared with what we got this season for finishing ninth in the Championship last season.

There are other objectives to be achieved in terms of attendance, community work, social media engagement which also attract funding but will not make up for such a large deficit. Barrow have made significant improvement in all of these areas and deserve credit.

The loyal supporters, including myself, have continued to support the club and the average attendance has held at approximately 1,400, which is impressive.

That average should increase tomorrow and next week with the large contingent of Bradford fans expected and if we can get to a ‘meaningful’ last game against Batley the average would further increase.

It has been a very disappointing season with only four wins from 22 games. I’m sure there will be a full review at the end of the season, but at the moment we must all stay optimistic that the great escape is possible.