North Wales Crusaders travel to Cumbria to take on Barrow Raiders in their first pre-season outing ahead of the 2022 campaign.
Here’s our big match preview with all the important information about the clash at Craven Park.
FORMBOOK
This is the only opportunity Crusaders head coach Anthony Murray will get to take a look at his squad before they face Leigh Miners Rangers in the second round of the Challenge Cup on Saturday, January 29.
While it is North Wales’ first match of pre-season, Barrow have already been in action over the last couple of weeks.
After beating fellow Cumbrian club Workington Town 24-12, they backed up the result with a 34-22 success over Newcastle Thunder, who are preparing for their second season in the Championship.
COACH COMMENTS
Travelling to Barrow is an ideal challenge to begin pre-season with, according to Anthony Murray.
He said: “It’s come around really quickly.
“We’ve been in since the end of November so the lads have been training really hard and we’ve had good numbers in training all the time.
“We’ve brought in quite a few new faces and some younger ones who’ve not had experience of playing at this level before, along with lads from the community game.
“It’ll be interesting to see how they do and what a game to start with as I don’t think Barrow have lost a fixture yet and they’ve beaten sides like Workington and Newcastle.
“It’ll be a really tough tie and good preparation for us as, when we play over at Leigh Miners, they’ll be up for the challenge.”
Comments