Barrow Raiders head coach Paul Crarey remained proud of his players after their spirited performance against York City Knights wasn’t enough to prevent a 24-16 defeat at Craven Park.

Barrow were pushed ever closer to relegation by the loss, with third-from-bottom Widnes Vikings the only team they can realistically catch in their remaining four games this season, and even they are three points ahead.

However, if the Raiders can give a repeat of their showing against the Knights at home to Bradford Bulls next week, then they can still give themselves some late hope in what has been a traumatic season.

In the second half, they more than matched the team who are second in the Betfred Championship, who ultimately were more clinical in taking their chances, making a comeback from 24-4 down too tall an order.

Crarey said: “The killer punch was, after we’d been pulled for two forward passes that looked like line balls - particularly the second one on the try line that was flicked back for Liam Paisley - to have tries disallowed and then a minute later they throw a forward pass to [Matty] Marsh, who romped in from 50 metres.

“That was the killer bunch, but I’ll take my hat off to my boys.

“Martin Aspinwall has got a busted cheekbone that he’s gone to hospital for, Jarrad Stack ripped his groin and Tee Ritson played on with a concussion and we had no subs left with 25 minutes to go.

“I thought with 20 minutes to go we were all over them and we were unlucky not to score.

“At this level, you’ve got to be clinical and if we’d have no luck we’d have luck in this game because we’ve had no luck with the bounce of the ball or calls going against us.”