PAUL Crarey wants his Barrow Raiders players to use last weekend’s heavy defeat as a motivator to rediscover their winning habit when Dewsbury Rams come to town this Sunday.

The 56-0 loss away to the newly-promoted City Knights came as a shock to the system for everyone associated with the Raiders, with many expecting a much closer contest.

Barrow are not the only side to have suffered defeat by a wide margin in the Betfred Championship so far this season though, with Swinton Lions shipping 64 points in an opening-day loss away to Sheffield Eagles and Rochdale Hornets losing 58-6 at home to full-timers Toronto Wolfpack just under two weeks ago.

Indeed, it is the response which is more important to Crarey than dwelling on what went wrong against York, with the clash at home to Dewsbury earmarked as a winnable fixture.

“I can’t do much about the performance except hope the lads take some pride and come back in and work hard for what will be a big game against Dewsbury,” said Crarey.

“There was a big turnaround from the Batley game and we need another one for the Dewsbury game.

“It’s a funny thing, rugby league, because you can play badly one week and we won’t be the only team who gets points put on us this year.

“You only have to look at Swinton and what happened to them at their first game in the season, and their reaction was a good performance against Bradford.”

While the nature of the defeat at Bootham Crescent was tough to take, Crarey knows three games into the season is no time to start panicking.

He also knows the key to Barrow replicating the sort of performance they put in to win away to Batley Bulldogs to kick off the 2019 Championship season with a win is working hard in training.

And while he was enthused by some individual efforts against York, he wants to see the team come together rather than trying to fix things on their own.

“We looked in their eyes and what happens is when things go wrong you start trying to fix things up as an individual,” said Crarey.

“We had some strong individual efforts; Martin Aspinwall, Josh Johnson and Jordan Walne carried strongly, but they had no support. They’re trying to lead the way, but the others have got to follow.

“I spoke to them and said ‘nobody will fix it, only us’ and we get Glenn Riley back, hopefully, with our middle just with numbers.

“It’s a long year, and we’ve just got to work hard and win the games we need to win.”