Barrow Raiders head coach Paul Crarey believes his side have come back from Canada with their pride intact after their depleted squad fought until the last at Toronto Wolfpack.

The Raiders had insurmountable odds stacked against them, as they had to fly over 3,000 miles to play the team who are 12 points clear at the top of the Betfred Championship and had won their previous 19 games.

Even with a full squad, Barrow would have only had a slim chance of getting a result at the Lamport Stadium but the fact that they had to travel across the Atlantic Ocean with only 14 fit players made the task an impossible one.

The Wolfpack cruised to a 62-8 victory that comfirmed the Raiders’ relegation after a season where they have got to go through an unprecedented injury crisis, but Crarey was thrilled with his players’ never-say-die attitude.

He said: “We knew it was a big ask to come, and we’ve seen teams at full size that have been beaten more than that, so we get some respectability to come out of it.

“I’m proud of them every week. We go with our small budget and a massive injury crisis all year and we’re coming to the end of the season.

“This game takes us done but we fought, we were very competitive - more so than last year when we stayed up. I’m proud of the boys who turned up.

“You’re thinking 14 guys, three busted before we got on the field. You think ‘how are we going to get some respectability?’ but we got that.

“It’s always going to be a difficult ask to stay in this division without system being known and injuries, but it’s about competing and we’ve done that all year but we just haven’t been good enough to stay up.”