Batley Bulldogs ready for '˜in-form' Barrow test

BATLEY BULLDOGS need to be at their best for the entire game to see off visitors Barrow Raiders tomorrow (3pm), coach Matt Diskin reckons.

By The Newsroom

Published 24th Feb 2018, 04:32 BST

Promoted Barrow have drawn with Toronto and beaten Leigh and Diskin described them as the Betfred Championship’s “form team”.

He said: “They’ll be a real challenge. They have some big middles and they get to the end of their sets extremely well. They grind away at you and any mistakes you make they capitalise on.

“We have got to make sure we concentrate for 80 minutes.”

But Diskin said Barrow no longer have the element of surprise in their favour. He added: “Maybe the two full-time teams underestimated them. What that means is we will make sure we don’t.”

Batley got off the mark with a 48-28 win at Swinton six days ago. Diskin insisted: “It was a good performance last week with ball in hand, but defensively we were pretty average. There are some improvements to make. It is a home game and we need to pick up wins at home. If we do that we will be in a good position at the end of the year.”