FORWARD Adam Nicholson will be given a chance to prove himself once more for Barrow Raiders tonight.

The former Dalton and Walney Central man has been absent from the Barrow side for most of the season and has spent the past month improving his fitness at the orders of coach Paul Crarey.

Now Crarey is set to throw Nicholson into action against Hemel Stags at Craven Partk and task him with repaying the faith shown in him by the Raiders coaching staff (6.30pm kick-off).

“We’re going to give Adam Nicholson a run this weekend,” said the Barrow boss.

“He has worked hard over the last month trying to regain some fitness. He’d gone away from the club and put some weight on and he came back nowhere near in condition.

“We put him on a strict fitness programme for a month and we said we wouldn’t play him for a month until he got himself somewhere near fit.

“He has worked hard and we give him credit for that. He’s still a little bit off where he should be in terms of fitness, but he will come in and do a job and give somebody a rest this weekend.

“He has to prove himself on the field now.”

Nicholson will come into a Barrow side missing several key men tonight.

Centres Andy Litherland and Max Wiper both suffered injuries in last week’s victory against Oxford at Cheltenham, while forwards Craig Briscoe and Andrew Dawson are also doubts.

“We’re pretty bashed up again,” said Crarey, who has a number of long-term absences as well, including Matthew Heaton, Jamie Butler and Kristian Tyson. “We’ve got a couple of doubts with Craig Briscoe, who has a knee problem which has swelled up, and Andy Litherland limped off and has a recurrence of an ankle problem. There’s Andrew Dawson as well, we’re getting him patched up from week to week.

“Max Wiper won’t play this weekend. He limped off against Oxford and he’s been struggling in recent games.

“He’s got a knee problem again. It’s the same knee as last time and it’s heavily strapped. He got a bang at the weekend and he had to come off.

“With Max and Litherland both coming off, we had to reshuffle. Briscoe had to start off the bench as well because he has been injured for a while now – if we have the chance to rest him this week, then we will.

“We are more or less patching the side up every week at the moment and sending them out there. We haven’t done any serious coaching for five or six weeks – and that’s probably why our performances are a little bit down.

“We haven’t done any contact work, we’ve had eight to 11 training and we’ve been patching players up to get them back on the field.

“To do what we have done considering that is pretty good. We’re up amongst it and we’re looking for a good performance this week with the lads who are coming in.”