The amount of games being called off last weekend - and potentially this one - has reopened the debate on whether the rugby league season begins too early in the year, with Barrow Raiders head coach Paul Crarey believing that it does.

Raiders prop Carl Forster was among the players to express their annoyance with the current set-up after the Coral Challenge Cup tie against London Skolars was postponed due to the effects of Storm Ciara.

Forster tweeted: "Same every year, start the season in March, finish it in October/early November. Christmas and new year off, pre-season start early Jan, simple."

That is a view Crarey agrees with, as he believes holding pre-season training in the middle of winter is having an adverse effect on players' skill sets in England.

Crarey said: "I'd like the season to start a little bit later, really.

"In the olden days, you used to do all your pre-season work in the summer with a vest top on and you'd work on your skills then and when you started the season in September, and there was good weather then.

"You only had a couple of bad months and then it started to get firmer again in March.

"We have more leg injuries now than we've ever had because of the hard grounds, and things like that, and I just think with summer rugby the players miss out on so much with families and stuff.

"Probably the only reason we did go to a summer season is because our premier division, which is the Super League, did so and we had to follow suit or else we'd be dysfunctional.

"As a spectacle for the fans it's good, but for coaches with no facilities it's very difficult training in gyms and losing all that skill.

"If you look at the skill levels throughout rugby league, everyone raves about an off-load now whereas everyone used to play what they saw and be natural.

"A lot of that has gone out of the game - it's just power and pace now, probably because of that reason."