HULL KR head coach Willie Peters breathed a sigh of relief after the Super League leaders withstood a second-half fightback from 12-man Hull FC to claim derby bragging rights yesterday.

The defining moment in the top-of-the-table contest between the crosstown rivals at Hull City Stadium was in the 16th minute, when Cade Cust saw red for a rash shoulder barge to the head of Arthur Mourgue.

Rovers, 4-0 in front at the time thanks to Oliver Gildart’s try, built a 16-4 half-time lead as Peta Hiku and Mourgue, having passed a head injury assessment, touched down, but the hosts swiftly hit back.

Jack Ashworth’s first-half score was added to by tries from Tom Briscoe and Jordan Rapana to close the deficit to two points and give a sellout 21,000 crowd – Hull FC’s highest in 16 years – fresh hope.

But as the atmosphere reached fever pitch, James Batchelor crossed with a quarter of an hour left before Jared Waerea-Hargreaves bagged a try moments later to seal a 28-14 win for the Robins.

“Hull are a very tough team when they’ve got 13 players, but they found another leg when they had 12,” Peters said. “They pushed us right to the end and that could have gone either way.

“We didn’t really handle the 12 men the way we should. I thought we lost our way a little bit. I’m just happy that last 20 minutes, we found something when we needed to.

“People say you get a lot of learnings when you lose, but that’s a game we can get a lot of learnings from. We got the two points which is what we came here to do.”