Last updated at 20:59, Thursday, 16 August 2012

The champagne remains on ice at Derwent Park despite Workington Town’s excellent 48-34 victory against Championship One leaders Barrow Raiders.

The win saw Town back in the driving seat in the race for the league title and £50,000 winner-take-all cheque.

If Workington win their three remaining games, at Oldham on Sunday, away to Gateshead on August 29 and then at home to Rochdale on September 2, they will win the title.

Chairman Dave Bowden said: “Sunday’s result was clearly important and I am sure both sets of coaches will not have been 100 per cent happy with either team’s performance.

“But the mistakes made it a good game for the fans.

“The players know they are going to have to lift their game and make improvements for the trip to Oldham. There’s going to be no complacency.

“Oldham have a new coach in Martin Roden and we know how teams can perform very well when a coach comes in. And we mustn’t forget that Oldham are the only team to beat us at home this season, albeit the first league game.

“But if we play to our full potential there’s no doubt we can get a good result on Sunday.”

More than 1,700 fans turned out for Town’s clash with Barrow, a game that saw Barrow born and bred Mike Whitehead crash over for a late try, converted by Carl Forber, to prevent Raiders getting an all-important bonus point.

Bowden added: “We are very pleased at how the public have responded. We had a decent gate against Barrow and there were people down there that I haven’t seen for a while. It was good to see them back and good to win for them.

“And business on the sponsorship side of things is also going extremely well.

“The sponsors’ lounge has been totally sold out for the last six home games, and it’s fully booked for the Rochdale game. There has been more interest and we might have to use the boardroom for spill over.

“But the bottom line is that we haven’t won anything yet.

“We were pretty low after the defeat at Doncaster but it was a real wake-up call. It showed us that we have to work for results and I think the performance against Barrow on Sunday proved we’ve learned our lesson.”

Full-back Brett Carter has had minor surgery on a muscle tear in his stomach and will miss the Oldham trip. And two other injury worries, Graeme Mattinson and Stephen Dawes, are both being closely monitored ahead of Sunday’s game.

Meanwhile, Mike Whitehead looks to have played in his last local derby in the league.

The 33-year-old and a veteran of 18 seasons in the professional game, said: “It was great to score but left me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth. Darren Holt is my best mate but I am paid to do a job and did it.

“It was obviously very good to score the try to put us back in contention for the league title.”

Remaining Championship One fixtures Sunday: Doncaster v Crusaders, Oldham v Workington, Rochdale v Barrow.

Wednesday, August 29: Gateshead v Workington.

Sunday, September 2: Barrow v South Wales, London Skolars v Doncaster, Workington v Rochdale.

First published at 19:22, Thursday, 16 August 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk