Head coach Paul Crarey believes Barrow Raiders have the young players to help the team bounce back even if they are relegated from the Betfred Championship this season.

If the Raiders are to escape the drop, it will be pretty miraculous, as they are three points adrift of safety with four matches of their season left, with one of those being away at runaway leaders Toronto Wolfpack.

Crarey was very encouraged by the performances of young half-backs Jake Carter and Ryan Johnston against York City Knights, who were part of what was a spirited display in last Sunday’s 24-16 defeat at Craven Park.

Barrow also having promising players such as Adam Ford in their ranks, while several of his teammates from Furness Raiders’ successful side could make the step up to first-team rugby in the years ahead.

Crarey said: “I thought Ryan Johnston played at half and at hooker extremely well and as a young half-back playing in the middle against a team like York, he was outstanding.

“Jake Carter came back on and put some fantastic kicks in - his drop-out under the posts was sensational, where he got us the restart.

“These kids are thinking on their feet and we’re putting them under tremendous pressure to keep us in this division, but they’re the future of the club and, whatever happens, we’ll be healthy.

“That’s because we’ve done things behind the scenes to keep us in a position where if the worst does happen, we’ll be back at some stage because we’re a big club.

“We’ve just been so unlucky these last two years. Momentum took us up in the first year and momentum got us those early wins, but we didn’t get that this year and we’ve lost games we should have won because we started late and we brought players in late.

“There are factors that have put us in this position, but one thing we haven’t done in any game is throw the towel in.”

What is for certain is that if Barrow put in a repeat of their performance against York when Bradford Bulls visit Craven Park on Sunday, they’ll give themselves the best possible chance of picking up the win that is paramount to keeping their survival hopes alive.

Crarey said: “Whether we survive or not now, we don’t know, we’ll find out this week with us having a massive team like Bradford Bulls coming to town.

“It’s not going to be easy and there’s no sentiment in professional sport - I know that because I’ve been in a team, for Barrow, that’s been promoted to the big league and I’ve played in a team that’s been relegated, and there’s no worse place to be when that happens.

“But our boys have been absolutely on the money every week and we’ve took the pressure off them.

“It’s a good environment to work in, I’m 100 per cent behind them and they’re 100 per cent behind me and I'm just so proud of the effort they’re putting in.”