The bearpit atmosphere at Craven Park makes it one of the least hospitable venues for a visiting team. Bradford Bulls also found themselves in the rare situation of being intimidated up front by the gnarled trio of Clint Newton, Stanley Gene and Mick Vella, the former Australia prop, whom Justin Morgan, the Hull Kingston Rovers coach, described as being in the form of his life.

Bradford, who badly missed the direction of the indisposed Paul Deacon, were battered into submission and missed the chance to go second in the engage Super League. This at the hands of opponents who had taken one point from their previous three matches, but were dominant throughout. “We missed our grizzle the last couple of weeks and we had that back,” Morgan said of a victory that moved Rovers up to eighth place.

Penalties proliferated and Bradford never got going in the drizzle. Their try, by David Solomona at the end, meant that the final score did not truly reflect the balance of play.

“We missed an opportunity and are pretty sore about it,” Steve McNamara, the Bradford coach, said. “They ran harder and tackled harder than us for 80 minutes.”

Ben Fisher's dink behind the Bradford line caught out Semi Tadulala for Peter Fox to touch down the first try for Rovers. Bradford responded immediately after Fox knocked on from the restart, with Tadulala the beneficiary of a huge overlap. Ben Cockayne then fumbled Paul Cooke's kick when it looked easier to score, but the home team regained the lead through a penalty goal by Cooke.

The former Hull stand-off then sent Newton powering over by the posts and set up a further try for Cockayne, giving the lie to a suggestion last week by Tony Rea, the former London Broncos coach, that Cooke has a negative effect on the team, comments that Morgan described yesterday as “drivel” and “garbage”.

Paul Sykes finally pulled back a try for Bradford while Newton was in the sin-bin for a professional foul, but Rovers were rock-solid, until Solomona's late consolation effort.

Scorers: Hull Kingston Rovers: Tries: Fox, Newton, Cockayne. Goals: Cooke 4. Bradford Bulls: Tries: Tadulala, Sykes, Solomona. Goals: Harris 3.

Hull Kingston Rovers: S Briscoe; P Fox, Jake Webster, B Cockayne, D Fitzhenry; P Cooke, James Webster; M Vella, B Fisher, D Mills, S Gene, C Newton, B Galea. Interchange: G Crossman, R Lovegrove, S Murrell, K Netherton.

Bradford Bulls: D Halley; J Evans, P Sykes, S Hape, S Tadulala; I Harris, B Jeffries; A Lynch, W Godwin, S Burgess, C Nero, G Morrison, J Langley. Interchange: T Newton, D Solomona, S Finnigan, C Feather.

Referee: R Silverwood.