PAUL Crarey knew his Barrow Raiders had it in them to recover from a six-point deficit to claim their first win of the new Betfred Championship season against York Knights yesterday afternoon.
After a late Luke Cresswell try, and subsequent Ryan Shaw conversion, levelled the scores with five minutes left to play, Brad Walker’s drop-goal completed the Raiders’ 15-14 comeback with just over a minute remaining.
Returning Knights hooker Will Jubb had earlier opened the scoring 16 minutes into the contest, only to be pegged back by Shaw and Max Clarke at the interval.
Oli Field and Charlie Severs also both crossed the whitewash in the second half, having been forced to play at centre and on the wing after injuries to Will Dagger and Jimmy Keinhorst had forced a reshuffle, but it was not enough for the Knights.
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The shoe had been on the other foot for Crarey’s charges as they were denied victory by a single point at Cumbrian rivals Whitehaven last weekend, but the head coach was delighted to see things fall kindly for his side on their return to Craven Park.
“I thought that we were very good in the first half,” he told the club.
“We had 94 per cent completions and came up with one error, I think. I spoke to the boys in the second half about replicating that, and I think we made five errors and we put ourselves under the pump.
“We gave a penalty away on the last tackle, mid-field, which allowed them the field position to score the try.
“But at 14-8, we knew we had it in us, even with seven minutes to go, to get the win.
“We had a process to turn our edges in and push really hard down the middle, and it came off to a tee with two minutes to go.
“Luke Cresswell is always on the end of good stuff for us and he scored under the posts untouched and that’s what we’ve been working on, but we didn’t do it often enough.
“They gave away a penalty for a high shot and we set up religiously for a drop-goal, something we didn’t do last week.
“It’s the same performance but we won by a point and everyone’s gone away happy."
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