Only the weather threatened to disrupt the new-look Hull KR after a mid-morning pitch inspection. The Robins showed their dominance with a five try display, shutting out a fairly young Eagles outfit on the mud bath pitch at Craven Park.

After the early exchanges of succesful penalty conversions for Rovers Phil Hasty and Sheffield's Gavin Brown, the host took control of the contest. Rovers crossed the visitor's line twice during a ten minute period that followed the sin-binning of Eagles prop Jon Bruce for interference.

Slick handling between Anthony Seibold, Paul Parker and Hasty saw winger Craig Farrell put in at the right corner. Hasty failed with the conversion attempt but only minutes later Dale Holdstock was over in the same corner following more linked play between Hasty and Seibold.

The home side saw two further tries ruled out before the half an hour mark when Matt Calland had a try cancelled out for crossing during the build up, whilst Ally McClarron had his effort disallowed for a forward pass.

Man of the Match Paul Mansson made amends for an earlier mistake that saw the Eagles nearly score from an interception. The kiwi half-back scored one of his typical tries as he brushed aside three tacklers to score in the left corner. Hasty again missed with his touchline attempt at goal but Rovers left the field to a healthy applause from a near 2,400 crowd, holding a convincing 14-2 half time lead.

The Robins continued to emphasise their superiority, especially in defence as Sheffield failed to make any in roads towards the home try line. The impressive Holdstock and substitute Frank Watene drove up field to within five metres of the Eagles line in the 64th minute. McClarron finally got himself on the score sheet from the following play as he scored to the left of the post.

With nine minutes remaining, Farrell was held up over the visitors try line. Under the new ruling, Rovers restarted play on the ten metre line continuing the tackle count. Debutant Casey Mayberry showed great speed off the mark to race in from close range beside the uprights. Craig Poucher, taking over kicking duties in Hasty's absence, was succesful with the conversion.

This proved to be the final score of the afternoon despite Mayberry again showing blistering pace to chase a long kick through that the Sheffield full-back struggled to deal with, thinking he had plenty of time in the final minutes.