Head coach Paul Crarey is delighted with how Barrow Raiders have gone about their recruitment during the off-season, with his squad for next year needing just a few finishing touches.

Rugby director Andy Gaffney and chairman Steve Neale have been working tirelessly for the last couple of months negotiating new contracts with current players and to bring in others from outside the club.

The result is that Crarey will be able to work with the majority of the squad from last season, giving him some much-needed continuity ahead of Barrow’s campaign in Betfred League One.

Some extra quality has been brought into their front row in Carl Forster and Lee Jewitt, as well as the huge potential of former Millom prop Connor Terrill.

Crarey said: “We’ve lost a fair chunk of money after being relegated and Andy Gaffney and Steve Neale have done a magnificent job in getting the players signed up.

“We identified the players we wanted to keep and we’ve probably gone on attitude, first and foremost, and culture and the lads who’ve brought into that the best were offered deals.

“We’ll see how the money situation goes after that and we might lose a few players at the back end, but we’ve certainly got 20 players now who are very much capable of competing in League One.”

Crarey does sound a word of caution for those who think the step down in division will make things a breeze for the Raiders and believes there will be some tough competition in attempting to win promotion back to the Championship.

He said: “I know there’s a lot of money getting spent at Newcastle. Doncaster are spending a lot of money in bringing Super League players in their quest to go up, but sometimes money is not the answer.

“We’ve been together for 12 months as a group, so that will help us. We’ve got the majority of the squad from last season signed up and we’re probably going to have nine or ten good amateurs signed up.”

That the Raiders are able to bring in up to ten players from amateur clubs on dual registration deals is part of a new initiative from the RFL that will prevent the squads at third tier clubs becoming too depleted by injury or unavailability.

Crarey is a huge fan of having the ability to bring in players from the likes of Barrow Island, Millom and Dalton to boost numbers, saying: “We did it with Luke Cresswell - people don’t realise we brought him in a season before he signed.

“He trained with us to see if he liked it and if he fitted in and he was absolutely outstanding, so the prototype is Luke, really.

“He came in and there was no pressure on him, it was just all about himself and his attitude and whether he turned up for training.

“If we can get a few Luke Cresswells out of it, then it will have done its job.”