T'Other Side: Barrow Raiders

For many years Barrow's main colours have been blue and white. The club was founded in 1875 so 2025 is the club's 150th anniversary and for this season their main shirt reflects the colours that Barrow had when they began.

Head Coach: Paul Crarey 

Paul Crarey has been Barrow’s head coach ever since 2015 which makes him the longest serving coach in the Championship. He was also Barrow’s head coach from 2006 to 2007.

He had a short spell as Whitehaven’s head coach at the beginning of the 2008 but left in March of that year because of illness.

In his playing days he was a hooker and made over 170 appearances for Barrow as well as playing for Carlisle.

In 1992 he was hooker in the Cumbria side who played Australia in a warm-up match for that year’s World Cup.

 

Captain: Jarrad Stack 

Australian second rower, Jarrad Stack, has been the Barrow captain since 2020. He arrived in the UK in 2009 to join Workington from Melbourne Storm at the age of 20. He then moved to Barrow in 2017.

He has played 345 games in the UK (171 for Workington and 174 for Barrow) and scored 112 tries (62 for Workington and 50 for Barrow).

 

Loan players and Dual Registration

For this season Barrow signed a dual registration agreement with Salford Red Devils but the only consequence, so far, has been two games when Salford prop Joe Bullock turned out for Barrow. 

Barrow have Leigh Leopards players Ryan Brown (prop) and Kavan Rothwell (prop/loose forward) on loan.

Tee Ritson (winger) was a Barrow player from 2019-2022 and during 2021 and 2022 he scored 55 tries in 46 appearances. He was signed by St. Helens in 2023 but is now back on loan at Barrow.

Jamie Pye (prop) has had two spells on loan from Salford but we think he is now back with his home club.

 

The Fev connection

 

There are no players in the 2025 Featherstone Rovers squad who have ever played for Barrow Raiders and only one of the Barrow squad (Aaron Smith) has ever played for Fev and that was in a short loan spell from St. Helens.

For primarily geographical reasons, only 24 players have played for both Fev and Barrow as far as we know.

Mathieu Cozza (prop) is a French international and he made his first grade début playing for Catalans Dragons in 2021. During 2022 he played 3 games for Barrow, on loan from Catalans. He signed for Fev for the 2023 season and played 22 games and scored 4 tries. Since 2024 he has been a Wakefield Trinity player.

 

David Heselwood (centre) is from Leeds where he played from 1980 until 1984. In the 1984-85 season he moved to play for Barrow and played 20 games scoring 4 tries but the excessive travelling resulting from playing at Barrow resulted in him coming back to West Yorkshire and he joined Fev in January 1986. He made 23 appearances for Fev and scored 3 tries before a serious injury in November 1986 forced him to retire at the age of 28.

 

Maltese international, Jarrod Sammut (halfback), originally came to the UK from Australia to play for Crusaders RL in 2010. He then joined Bradford in 2012 and moved on to Wakefield in 2014. While he was at Wakefield he played 1 game for Fev during which he kicked 10 goals from 10 attempts!

During 2015 he played on dual reg for London Broncos and, in June, he transferred to Workington. He went on to play for the Broncos (2017, 2018 and 2021), Wigan (2019), Leigh (2020) before joining Barrow in 2022. For Over the 2022 and 2023 seasons he made 50 appearances for Barrow, scoring  26 tries, 54 goals and 1 drop goal for a total of 213 points.

In 2024 he returned to Workington and played on loan for Bradford. This year he played 3 games for Keighley before returning to Australia.