Rare home comfort for Eagles over Crusaders

It lifted them back into the play-off places and was only their third win in the league at Owlerton Stadium.

New signing Kyle Briggs made his debut at loose-forward and showed some neat touches before the Eagles went ahead when Andrew Henderson found Menzie Yere with a flat pass and the centre crashed over. Dominic Brambani added the goal.

Eagles kept up the pressure with Patch Walker putting in a chip for Scott Turner to collect his 22nd try of the season.

Winger Misi Taulapapa rounded off a workmanlike 40 minutes for the Eagles, out-jumping the cover to take a long hanging cross-field kick from Brambani to touchdown for 14-0.

Crusaders had more urgency from the restart and were rewarded with loose-forward Jono Smith forcing his way over.

Smith turned villain as his wild offload was snapped up by Lelauloto Tagaloa, on for the injured Yere, to race 80 metres to touch down under the post with Brambani adding the goal.

The deficit was pushed out with Quentin Laulu-Togagae taking an offload from Duane Straugheir to produce a dummy and a swerve through.

Then the Eagles stalled as Crusaders came back to claim a losing bonus point with tries from Sed Martins and a second for Smith, Tommy Johnson kicking the goals.

Sheffield Eagles: Laulu-Togagae; Turner, Yere, Straugheir, Taulapapa; Walker, Brambani; Battye, Henderson, Stringer, Knowles, Hope, Briggs. Substitutes: Davey, Lillycrop, Tagaloa, Aspinall.

North Wales Crusaders: Johnson; Birkett, Roets, Reardon, Wilde; Ashall, Dallimore; Walker, Hudson, Martins, Davidson, Bannister, Adamson. Substitutes: Smith, Duffy, Reid, Thornley.

Referee: C Kendall (RFL).