Barrow Raiders head coach Paul Crarey praised his side’s second half performance after they came from behind to beat Doncaster 32-22 in their opening game of the 2020 Betfred League One season.

Four tries in the second 40 minutes gave the Raiders what could prove to be a valuable two points against fellow promotion contenders.

Crarey says there were plenty of words of encouragement spoken at half-time in order to get the best out of his players in South Yorkshire.

“We spoke at half-time about coming from behind against Featherstone twice and nearly pinching that game by playing quicker,” said Crarey.

“Once we played quicker we took the game to another level, I changed things on the left edge to try and create more space and that worked out well for us.

“What we put in place at half-time was executed really well, we were up against it but managed to find a way to win.

“Workington tortured Donny on the short edge last week and we’ve used that to our benefit and scored some tries from it.

“We made easy metres on yardage and then when we went back down the middle there was plenty of space for us to exploit.”

After defending right until the final hooter to secure the victory, Crarey felt the Raiders players and supporters deserved huge credit for the solid start to the season.

“Credit to our boys because it’s going to be a really tough place to come for most teams, they’ve got some real good players and you can see that with the way they play,” he added. “There were a lot of late collisions in the first half that were legal but bordering on brutal from both sides and that made it a real dog fight.”