The road to glory ended on Humberside for the Royal Navy Rugby League side when they ran up against one of the country’s top amateur sides in the second round of the Powergen Challenge Cup.

After a narrow victory over Normanton in the first round of the contest – RL’s counterpart to the FA Cup – the sailors were sent back north for the clash with East Hull, who were sitting pretty at the top of the Arriva Trains Conference Division 2.

The Navy was missing many of the players who played crucial parts in the first match, and the home side was always going to be a tough nut to crack, as they went into the clash unbeaten in 15 games.

After the opening skirmishes it was the Royal Navy which got on to the scoreboard first, with Scott Partis slotting home a penalty on ten minutes, but having soaked up the Navy’s early pressure East Hull stirred themselves and within five minutes took the lead through a try by skipper John McCracken.

The Humberside squad ran in three more tries before the break, but poor kicking and a converted try from RN stand-off Dave Roberts, who gathered a loose ball to dot down, meant the sailors were still in touching distance at half-time, just 18-8 down.

The next try was likely to tip the balance of the match – and it went in the home side’s favour eight minutes after the restart.

This seemed to lift East Hull’s confidence, and they started to show the skills which had put them top of their division.

They then ran in a succession of tries for only two in reply from RN forwards Carl Gilson and Jamie Goss, to make a somewhat harsh final score of 48-18 to East Hull – a score which failed to reflect the massive effort put in by the Dark Blues, whose muscular pack surprised their hosts.

Jamie Goss collected the RN’s man of the match award for his commanding performance throughout, topped by the Senior Service’s final try.

However, the squad did came back from Humberside with some good news – one of East Hull’s rising stars who features in their U21 team joined the Navy last month.