Barrow Raiders are hoping to have Papua New Guinea internationals Stargroth Amean and Wartovo Puara available for the pre-season friendly against Workington Town, with the club in the process of organising flights.

The PNG duo were given Christmas with their families after spending most of the autumn playing for their country, first in the inaugural World Cup Nines then in the Kumuls' famous 28-10 victory over Great Britain.

As they are not yet back in the country, they missed last Sunday's pre-season opener against Oldham and will also be unavailable when the North Wales Crusaders visit Craven Park this weekend.

The intention is that Amean and Puara will have sufficient time to get back up to speed following their return before Barrow play their final friendly against their old rivals from up the coast on January 26.

Head coach Paul Crarey said: "They're coming now on January 15. We wanted them back this week, but we couldn't get them on a flight.

"They'll play against Workington Town and it gives them time to settle, really, because they've had a big off-season, with them playing against Great Britain."

It took some time for Amean and Puara to settle in Barrow when they first arrived last year, but they now have the benefit of knowing the Raiders' style of play, not to mention the town's climate during the winter, meaning it shouldn't took took long for them to get back in the swing of things this time.

Crarey said: "We'll have a week off before we play Workington - whether we'll play our top squad against them we don't know yet.

"We'll then have a week after that and it's the Challenge Cup, so it's about getting ready for the season and just working on our structures because we haven't done much of that yet, like working on our timing.

"We're starting to get there to where we need to be, but we're very pleased with the amateur lads that have come in and blended in with the squad."

Crarey isn't concerned about the result against Oldham, with the Raiders narrowly losing 22-18 having mounted a stirring comeback from 16-0 down despite not having several of their key players available.

"In the past we've won all our friendlies and we haven't done very well at the start, or been inconsistent," Crarey said.

"So it keeps us grounded when we're fighting for results and I just thought we were good across the board.

"For the first 20 minutes, we got no ball and we didn't defend that well, but once we found our feet, I thought we were pretty good."