Barrow Raiders part company with head coach Garry Schofield

Garry Schofield's return to coaching with Barrow has been cut short four days before the Cumbrian club's first game of the Co-operative Championship season. The former Great Britain captain was chosen by Barrow's hands-on chairman Des Johnson as a high-profile appointment to boost the club's push for a Super League place, but the pair's relationship always had the potential to combust and that appears to have happened even earlier than the most pessimistic might have predicted. Schofield has only been in charge for five games – an unconvincing 56-26 win against the amateurs of Leigh Miners in the third round of the Challenge Cup and two losses out of four in the Northern Rail Cup. Barrow's resulting failure to qualify for the quarter-finals of the latter competition for the first time since 2005 had led Johnson to lambast the playing and coaching staff and would now seem to have cost Schofield his job. A caretaker is expected to be appointed before Barrow's home game against Leigh on Saturday. Schofield, whose only previous coaching experience – 12 years ago – was little more successful as he was sacked after a slightly longer stint in charge of Huddersfield, is now expected to return to his previous roles in the media.