BARROW RAIDERS coach Amanda Wilkinson will only ever take the positives out of games as she admits the club is about where she expected it to be at this stage of the season.
After being something of a surprise package last season, fifth in their first season following promotion from the Championship, Barrow have had a slow start to 2025, winning two of their first eight matches.
Wilkinson was forced to rebuild her side over the winter when influential players including Jodie Litherland, Michelle Larkin, Demi Fisher, Emma Hutchinson, Sam Norman and Hannah Sherlock moved on, leaving the club with a much younger and less experienced squad to work with.
“I’m not shocked by any means, I thought we would have a start like this so we are around where I thought we’d be,” said Wilkinson, who temporarily welcomed Hutchinson and Norman back to the squad, while they took an unplanned break in their travels.
“We had one friendly and one of our main pivots, Beth Pattinson, was coming back from a C-Section, so only joined up with us in late January or February. So really the start of the season was our time to bond, start playing with each other and recognising our strengths and weaknesses.
“Our biggest issue so far has been not getting over the try line and not being smart enough. They have got out and given it everything, but the execution has not quite been there.
“They have always done their best, and as a coach I can’t ask for more than that, but that hasn’t been enough to get us the wins we’d have wanted.
“We are going forwarding each game that we play, the girls have never taken a backward step so we are looking at the positives. There is no point looking at the negatives, they’ve been and gone, there’s nothing you can do about them, we just have to look at the positives and build on them.”