Paul Crarey is not fazed by any attempts at mind games from opposite number Carl Forster ahead of tomorrow’s Kingstone Press League One play-off final.

Whitehaven player-coach Forster, whose side took three periods of golden point extra-time to battle past York City Knights in last week’s semi-final, has been quoted as saying Barrow Raiders will go into the promotion showdown “thinking it’s an easy game for them”.

Barrow swept aside Newcastle Thunder 60-0 and are unbeaten at home all year, but head coach Crarey laughed off any suggestions his side will be going into the match with any level of complacency.

“We’re too long in the tooth to be suckered into all that,” said Crarey. “We know we’ve got to be very good to win the game and they’ve got to be very good, and it’s whoever makes the least mistakes will win the game.

“We’re at home, we haven’t been beaten at home all year and it will take a very good side to beat us on our own track in front of our own fans.

“We spoke about that and we prepare the same as we have all year. We don’t get excited and we’re going to

think about the game. It’s massive – we’re focused on that and don’t get drawn in because they’ll want to slow us down.

“Hopefully the referee can deal with that and keep the game quick because we want to win it, we don’t want to slug it out and it come down to luck at the end or anything like that.”

The previous two Cumbrian derbies in League One this year have been typically unforgiving affairs and tomorrow is set to be no different.

Crarey’s side is braced for Haven to utilise the strengths in the pack, which has usually seen prop Forster name himself at loose forward to give them extra power through the middle.

The short kicking game of Paul Crook, plus the running threat of Papua New Guinean duo Dion Aiye and Jessie Joe Parker – who is set to play along with Craig Calvert despite both picking up injuries against York – are in Crarey’s mind as well. Barrow are set to welcome back Nathan Mossop, Martin Aspinwall and Bradd Crellin after all three missed the win over Newcastle though, and Crarey is aiming to showcase their expansive game despite a poor weather forecast.

“We’re running the same systems we have all year,” said Crarey. “We can play quick, we can play slow, we can play with shape or play direct.

“We need to pick which is the best one when the game is running, which is sometimes difficult to do, but we’ve done it all year.

“We’ve changed our style to suit different teams and that’s probably why we’ve finished second.

“The weather might play a massive factor, we’ve looked at the long-range forecast and it’s for wind and rain, and that will probably help them a lot.

“But we don’t want it to come down to that, we want it to come down to the best side on the day who plays some decent football.”