St Ives Roosters slipped to defeat in their first home outing of the East Premier Division season.

The locals went down 34-24 to Brentwood Eels at the One Leisure Outdoor Centre last Saturday.

The visitors seized the upper hand with a quickfire brace of converted tries before Roosters had Mickey Drake dismissed for dissent.

Another score followed as the Eels used their numerical advantage to good effect to ease into a 16-0 cushion at the break and leave Roosters in desperate need of regrouping.

Some calm words from senior men Tommy Newman and Dave Sykes certainly helped on that front, and the former touched down for their first try soon after the restart.

George Stevens then marked his Roosters debut by going over for a converted score which was sandwiched by two further Brentwood tries.

A 16-point deficit was reduced to just six by a rapid Barnie West try-double, but that was as close as they came to an unlikely comeback.

Brentwood ran in further tries either side of Newman’s second of the game to pocket the points.

Roosters skipper Josh Meadows said: “I asked the boys to give me another 80 minutes of 100 per cent effort and they did that.

“We made life tricky for ourselves at certain points by making simple errors.

“There are definitely things for us to tighten up on, but I feel the group is moving in the right direction.”