Barrow Raiders stay bottom of the Betfred Championship following their 24-12 defeat at Batley Bulldogs.
The Raiders found themselves trailing 8-0 at half-time, and a try early in the second half gave their hosts a handy advantage.
It started to look impossible when further tries followed, stretching their advantage to 24-0, before the Raiders grabbed two consolations through Greg Burke and Jarrod Sammut, which were converted by Ryan Shaw.
Head coach Paul Crarey said: “I thought in the first half, we were pretty good. We held on there when we gave a lot of penalties away, and they scored off their third
“Then we gave a penalty away towards the back end of the first half and we went in 8-0 down.
“We spoke about scoring first in the second half and getting within two, or taking two to get within six, and then there was a one-on-one ball steal.
“From then on, it was pretty frantic. We didn’t complete any sets, six errors in the first eight sets of the second half so we were chasing the game.
“Only with probably 10 minutes to go did we get a foothold in the game again.
“It was all Batley in the second half, and they showed us how to grind it out, be patient and play with loads of energy.”
The Raiders have drawn one and lost five of their opening six league fixtures and Crarey has challenged his players to respond quickly, with a home game against Halifax Panthers next up for them.
Crarey admitted the important stats from the game were very poor again – 56 per cent completion, 11 errors.
“We’re back to the poor stats again. That’s probably down to me and my team, and hopefully we’ll get a reaction when we have Halifax at home. We won’t be favourites there either, so it’s gonna be a tough gig.
“Hopefully we can change momentum and put some points on the board and put a good show on for our home fans.”
