
Barrow coach Paul Crarey has said his side will give nothing less than 100 percent when they face Toulouse on Saturday, even though a win and a second-placed finish would leave them facing a “logistical nightmare”.
Should the Raiders finish second after this weekend’s fixtures, they would immediately face a return trip to the south of France to face Toulouse again in the Promotion Play-off and it is that journey that would cause a major headache.
“There would be no flights available out of Manchester that week so we’d have to get a coach down to London on the Thursday, stay over night and then fly out from there on the Friday,” explained Crarey.
“It would mean we’d also have to come home on the Saturday night after the game and then possibly go around again the following weekend.
“This is all after we’ll have only got back this weekend on Sunday.
“If that happens we’ll deal with it but it’s certainly not ideal. Flying back straight after the game will cause problems if anyone gets a serious injury or isn’t allowed to fly due to concussion or something.
“It would be a logistical nightmare if we were to go back.
“It would work better for us if we finished third, but we know it wouldn’t be fair on the paying fans if we didn’t go out with out strongest side.
“We have a couple of guys unavailable this week in Martin Aspinwall, Andy Litherland, Danny Toal and Ryan Backhouse through injury or work commitments, but other than them we will be playing our strongest squad.
“Then if we go back next weekend they should be ok to come back in and add a bit of strength to the side.
“We will have to see what happens this week. Toulouse are already in the final so they may not want to risk some of their key players getting injured and missing the final.”