laravel 4 authentication returns false - laravel-4

Question

Whatever i do doesn't make the Laravel 4 authentication work. Here is my code in the routes.php file.
Route::post('check', function() {
$check = Hash::check(Input::get('password'), Hash::make('titanic1'));
var_dump($check);
var_dump(Input::all());
$auth = Auth::attempt(array('email' => Input::get('email'), 'password' => Input::get('password')));
var_dump($auth);
});
As you can see the Hash::check returns true but the Auth::attempt returns false. FYI, I've stored the hashed password in the db using Hash::make(Input::get('password')). Also, I've confirmed that the field length for storing the password is 60 characters. And, I'm implementing the UserInterface and its methods.
I'm using Ardent library for input validation. Here is my User Model.
use Illuminate\Auth\UserInterface;
use Illuminate\Auth\Reminders\RemindableInterface;
use LaravelBook\Ardent\Ardent;
use Zizaco\Entrust\HasRole;
class User extends Ardent implements UserInterface, RemindableInterface {
use HasRole;
protected $table = 'users';
protected $fillable = array('email','username','password','password_confirmation');
protected $guarded = array('id');
protected $hidden = array('password');
public $autoHydrateEntityFromInput = true;
public $autoPurgeRedundantAttributes = true;
public static $passwordAttributes = array('password');
public $autoHashPasswordAttributes = true;
public static $rules = array(
'email' => 'required|email|unique:users',
'username' => 'required|alpha_dash|unique:users',
'password' => 'required|alpha_num|min:8|confirmed',
'password_confirmation' => 'required|alpha_num|min:8'
);
public function getAuthIdentifier()
{
return $this->getKey();
}
public function getAuthPassword()
{
return $this->password;
}
public function getReminderEmail()
{
return $this->email;
}
public function beforeSave()
{
if ($this->isDirty('password')){
$this->password = Hash::make($this->password);
}
return true;
}
}
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.
Unni.