Paul Crarey celebrated his 300th game in charge of Barrow Raiders, but it wasn’t one he will care to remember.
The Raiders were taken apart 54-0 at Sheffield Eagles who have started the season on fire, currently lying joint top of the Championship with Wakefield Trinity.
Crarey had been happy with the way his side had started the game, grinding out the early arn wrestle and unlucky not to be ahead.
Ellis Gillam seemed to have touched down on the line but it was ruled no try and then a couple of mistakes gifted field possession to the Eagles who capitalised.
“Suddenly we were 24-0 behind at half-time and it was always going to be tough after that. They are on fire at the moment and that early success gave them the confidence to go on and make life hard for us,” said Crarey.
As well as Gillam going close Tom Walker had also been held-up just short, but all that changed on 18 minutes when Sheffield scored their first try through Eddie Battye which Cory Aston converted.
Jack Hansen, Joel Farrell and James Glover added further tries before the break, all converted by Aston.
It was a huge mountain to climb for Barrow and it got steeper three minutes into the second-half Barrow were on last tackle when Ben Jones-Bishop took an interception to race the full length for a try which Aston was unable to convert.
It then became a procession at regular intervals as Sheffield took complete control.
Hansen, Bailey Liu, Glover, Tyler Dickinson and Kyle Wood all crossed for second half tries to take the Eagles over the half century mark with kicks from Aston and Hansen.
