It was rough luck on Doncaster who have yet to clinch a win themselves, but Hartlepool worked tremendously hard to take the points.
Both sides began at breakneck pace but Pool were on top at the start with Daly testing home keeper Andy Warrington with a shot on the turn after seven minutes.
Rovers took charge for the rest of the half but Neil Roberts failed to capitalise on a good chance in the 17th minute and Steve Foster had a powerful header tipped around the post by Dimitrios Konstantopoulos 14 minutes later.
Warrington had to make a superb save to keep out a brilliant curling effort from Michael Proctor after 36 minutes, but Hartlepool refused to be denied and made the breakthrough in first-half injury time.
Tricky left winger Thomas Butler burst through the middle, and when Warrington could only parry his fierce low shot, Daly followed up to slide home the rebound.
Rovers came out for the second half with all guns blazing and Konstantopoulos had to make a crucial instinctive save to deny James Coppinger from point-blank range after 53 minutes.
Play began to swing from end to end and, a minute later, Lee Bullock was unlucky not to make it 2 -0 when he saw a header bounce back off the crossbar following a corner.
It needed another splendid save by the Hartlepool keeper to prevent Paul Heffernan equalising in the 57th minute with a bullet like header looked destined for the top corner until Konstantopoulos dived full-stretch to tip it away.
Hartlepool lived dangerously at times and were fortunate when Phil McGuire had a header cleared off the line from the resulting corner.
But they held firm at the back where on-loan central defender Neill Collins made an outstanding debut winning virtually everything in the air.
Rovers piled on the pressure in the closing stages but it was not their day with Nick Fenton and McGuire unable to convert difficult chances in the closing stages.