Crarey happy with route one win
Paul Crarey admitted Barrow’s 28-4 victory against North Wales Crusaders over the weekend wasn’t easy on the eye.
The Raiders have developed a reputation for free-flowing rugby under Crarey, but he implemented a change in style against the Crusaders to negate their strengths.
“It was just about us winning the game and taking their middle on – it wasn’t pretty at times, but we did what we had to do to get the job done,” Crarey told The Mail.
“We didn’t want to play sideways on them and let the middle off like we did in Blackpool, so it was really short.
“We wanted to take their middle on no matter what, chip away at them and get our rewards – and we did that.
“They’ve scored a lot of results in recent games, got pipped by Workington the previous week when they were probably the better team for sixty minutes, so we wanted to take that side off them and dominate through the middle.
“We didn’t overplay and at half-time we took the shackles off a bit, and we were on push-and-play, so it’s hard to set shape and we tried to create that rather than play it.
“Sometimes there are a few nerves about, but we went route one and it was just about winning the game.”
Brad Marwood played a key role in the victory, scoring two first-half tries on his first appearance in over a month at scrum-half.
Crarey believes Marwood’s performance highlighted Barrow’s strength in depth this season.
“He supports the ball really well, Brad,” added Crarey. “They probably got him on an edge defensively and Jarrad Stack was pulling people down who were targeting Brad, but he didn’t shy away from tackles.
“We’ve put faith in other lads to do a good job for us and they’re doing that. I know sometimes they’re bothered when they’re not in the team, but when we’re being successful, as we have been up to now in the League One Cup and everything else, everyone is part of what we’re doing here.
“They know where they are in the pecking order and when they come in, we’ve told them they’ve got to do a good job and he came in and did a great job.”