- by Chris Mortley

Doncaster Rovers manager Sean O'Driscoll revealed his delight that Doncaster Rovers learned from the lessons created by last weekend's 4-0 defeat to Cardiff, as his side dispatched of Hull City 3-1 at the Keepmoat Stadium on Saturday.

Goals from Martin Woods, Billy Sharp and James Coppinger granted Rovers the win against their Yorkshire rivals.

"We learned from the lessons that Cardiff taught us last week," said the Rovers boss following the game.

"We were much better without the ball and as a team we defended better. That gives you a chance. If you give goals away like we did last week, then you are going to struggle but I thought that overall throughout the whole game, we restricted them to the odd chance and I think that we had the ball in the box twenty times in the first half, which is a big plus for us."

Rovers were boosted by the return of John Oster for the victory over the Tigers who, despite not playing a pre-season, was a hub of flair and energy in the middle of the park.

"To be fair, he didn't have a pre-season last year - he just turned up training one day and we were asking 'what has he been doing?' because he was as fit as a fiddle," Sean commented on his returning midfielder.

"He's been working hard with Ross (Burbeary, conditioning coach) in the gym and I didn't think it was a problem with him. This is quite a hard pitch to play on when you have just come back from injury, but he lasted an hour and it was nice to bring him off when we were winning rather than keeping him on because you need to get a goal or need to create something."

The Rovers manager also praised the game's opening scorer in Martin Woods, a player not renowned for his heading ability in front of goal, but whose looping effort beat Matt Duke in the Tigers' goal after just one minute of the game - as well as the scorer of the final goal of the game in James Coppinger, who has been battling a niggling foot injury.

"He's usually got too much hair gel to affect his heading," joked O'Driscoll.

"But he gets into the box and he got into the box for the cross, so if you do that, you have half a chance. Whether Martin scored or not, you have to give him a big plus. It changes his position slightly and I thought that he was excellent today."

"He (Coppinger) has been struggling with his foot, but he was given the all-clear, so I think that settled him. There was talk that he had fractured a metatarsal and I think he was worried that he might do some more damage. The CT scan proved negative and he trained from Thursday onwards and he looked more like his own self."