Workington Town coach Anthony Murray saw enough in 55 minutes to be encouraged by his side’s performance in the abandoned game at Barrow.
A floodlight failure brought an early end to the contest with the Raiders in front by 14-4.
Town had lost to Whitehaven in the Ike Southward Memorial Trophy game by 22-6 a week earlier.
Murray said: “I thought playing two Championship sides would test us and we might be under the pump defensively against them.
“We were in both games but I thought we handled that side of the game very well, which was encouraging.
“In the last 10 minutes of the half we got good field position for the first time and made it count with a try. We forced a goal-line drop out and might have had a second try before half-time, so there was a lot to feel pleased about.”
Barrow did score a third try 10 minutes after the re-start and five minutes later the lights went out.
“I felt sorry for Luke Charlton in particular. He’s trained really hard on his fitness and was looking forward to the run-out at Barrow but he had only been on the field a minute when it ended.
“Luke is on trial and has worked really well. He was in Australia over Christmas and his granda got him our running, maintaining his fitness levels.”
It’s not any old granda – the man in question is Paul Charlton, a legend at Workington Town and Salford where he played 415 and 233 games respectively for the two clubs.
His dad is Gary Charlton, former Town coach who now director of rugby at Whitehaven and in his playing career represented all four Cumbrian sides – Whitehaven, Carlisle, Barrow and Workington, clocking up over 300 appearances.
Town don’t have a game this weekend but will resume on Saturday, February 4 when Bradford Bulls are sending a team to Derwent Park.
The League One season for the West Cumbrians will start a week late when they visit London Skolars on February 18.
