Barrow Raiders have shown during pre-season they’re having no problem in completing sets whilst in possession, but head coach Paul Crarey is wanting his players to make better use of the ball in future.

The Raiders went through the first half of last week’s 24-16 friendly victory against North Wales Crusaders with a 100 per cent completion rate, scoring three tries of that to ensure the result at Craven Park was never really in doubt.

Getting through five tackles was an issue sometimes last season, with overly-ambitious off-loads not going to hand or the ball being kicked ahead with phases still left.

However, Crarey was frustrated with the amount of chances that went begging, particularly in the second half, even though it’s only in the last month they’ve given more time to work on the structure of their game.

Crarey said: “We’ve said we wanted to knock out sets, but the biggest thing from last week is that we played a little bit wider.

“At times, we got out on yardage real easy just by playing and at times they couldn’t handle the pace of Shane [Toal] and Tee [Ritson] and we were using our edges to come out really good.

“I thought we were really good in that first half, we couldn’t ask for any more than a 100 per cent completion rate.

“We just didn’t finish our sets well enough and 24-4 up should have become more before we conceded two soft tries from dead-ball restarts, but I was pretty pleased with the progression from game one to game two.”

Barrow have managed to get through pre-season without too many injuries, other than Nathan Mossop needing shoulder surgery, but they haven’t had much luck in the hooker position.

Crarey’s son Joe filled in during the last couple of weeks, scoring a try against North Wales, but the youngster is unfortunately set for a spell on the sidelines as well.

Crarey said: “Joe has torn his ligaments in his wrist, I don’t know how long he’s going to be out, but he’s been to see a specialist, so we’ll just have to see how that settles down.

“He’s the only major one - there were a couple of bumps and bruises. We brought Carl Forster off as a precaution, as there was a little tear in his hamstring, but there is no major tear so he’ll probably by alright for the Workington game.”

Crarey the younger’s injury has been off-set slightly by his fellow nine Wartovo Puara flying back from Papua New Guinea this week and his compatriot Stargroth Amean won’t be too far behind.

“Star has got to clear up a few loose ends and then he’s over on Monday or Tuesday next week, so they’ll both play against Workington,” Crarey said.

“Wattsy will be badly needed by us because with Joe being injured, we’ve got no cover there so Ryan [Johnston] will have to go there at times. The sooner we get Mossy back the better - he’s nearly ready for some contact work.”