It was a performance that ticked the boxes for Willie Peters as Hull KR secured their passage into the fourth round of the Challenge Cup. Rovers overcame an admirable York outfit 44-2, scoring eight tries on their way to a first victory of 2025.

They didn't have it their own way and were made to work for their victory, particularly in the opening quarter as the Knights dug their heels in and refused to surrender. Eventually, Rovers found a way through and once they did, they never looked back.

It wasn't a perfect performance; Rovers made too many handling errors and brought pressure on themselves. With the ball they had a few poor moments, though that's to be expected in the opening run-out.

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But overall, Peters was satisfied with the character of the display.

"We're reasonably happy with that performance," he said. "York are a very good Championship team and we knew what we were going to get early. To me, it looked like two Super League teams the way they went set for set. It took us a long time to get over the top of them.

"What I was most pleased about was that everything didn't go our own way in that first 25 but from a mentality point of view, we stuck to our task and got through it. Our defence was the area that was most pleasing.

"Our players are full-time and fitness-wise we probably got them at the back end but full credit to Mash and his team. They stuck at it and are going to have a successful season."

On the attack, it is hard to be overly critical of a team that scored eight tries. Defensively, there could be no faulting Rovers. Despite having heaps of pressure on their line, they stood strong. They were largely untroubled and when they were, they came up with big shutdown plays.

"With the ball we knew it wasn't going to be perfect but we forced it a little bit at times. At other times, we looked really good as well. But we spoke about when we came up with an error, it doesn't affect our defence. It didn't because we found ways to stop tries. With the ball, that's going to improve. It was never going to be perfect."

Peters opted to select Kelepi Tanginoa as the final man in his matchday squad, preferring him over plenty of strong candidates such as Jack Brown, Sam Luckley and Eribe Doro.

Tanginoa's role is an intriguing one with two 80-minute back-rowers in the team through Rhyse Martin and James Batchelor. However, he played that role, albeit in a shorter stint than last year. Batchelor was withdrawn but returned for a short spell in the middle.

"They're unlucky to miss out," Peters said. "With Kelepi, he can play in the middle or the back-row. Sam is obviously coming off his wrist so hasn't had that pre-season the others have had. Jack Brown has had an outstanding pre-season and unlucky to miss out. Eribe Doro was very good as well. Unfortunately, you've got to pick 17, that's the nature of the beast."

On Batchelor's potential role adaptation, Peters added: "We want to have a look at that. If Kelepi is on the bench he's best suited as a back-rower. What Kelepi can bring, like he did, in that 15 minutes he came up with a great tackle that forced an error, scored a try and came up with some damaging runs. That's what we want from Kelepi. Does that mean Batch goes off and goes through the middle? It's something we want to look at."