BARROW Raiders head coach Paul Crarey felt his team caused their own downfall as they lost 38-28 at home to Halifax Panthers.

Crarey felt Raiders should have had the game dead and buried before Panthers hit back to win it late on.

Speaking about the result and performance to the club’s official Facebook Page, he said: “It was unbelievable.

“We were 28 points to 12 up and we didn’t manage the game, and panicked in certain situations.

“Even with seven minutes to go we were six points up and could’ve dropped a goal to make it seven and take the momentum out of the game, and psychologically it would have been a mountain to climb for them, but we didn’t.

“We tried to invent the wheel at times in the second half.

“I thought the first half was really good. High quality from both sides. We were at 90 odd per cent, we dropped one set.

“They were at 86 per cent or something like that and I’ve said to them (the Raiders players) at half-time this won’t drop off unless we drop off ourselves and I just don’t think we managed the game.”

Crarey couldn’t hide his disappointment at Raiders not going back to basics, and believes they handed the momentum and the subsequent victory back to the visitors.

He added: “Even with two minutes to go, we had set there. We worked hard and got the ball back and we threw an intercept on play two rather than being patient and that was game over.

“It’s about man managing the game, box kicking which we didn’t do a lot of towards the back end of the game, and the momentum all went the way of Halifax.

“You could see they grew another leg, and one of the tries was very disappointing when there was a guy over our tryline for what looked like an eternity. He’s held up and puts the ball down. Maybe it could have been called held early because there’s no momentum going forward, and it seemed like an eternity and he put the ball down to take the lead.

“I’m bitterly disappointed for the fans and myself because it is definitely one that got away of our own stupidity really.

“I just thought they had a man sin binned and we’ve put the cue on the rack when we should have put them to the sword.

“It was just the manner of defeat when it was totally in the bag and it’s a bit raw with me at the moment because I just thought we were in control of that game and probably a six or seven minute has cost us.”