Eastbourne Eagles tumbled to another heavy defeat last night when they crashed 52-38 at Peterborough.

The Sussex squad picked up the bonus point after they beat a depleted Peterborough team by 20 points at Arlington last Saturday, but that was all.

They should have done much better against a Panthers side who were unable to find a guest replacement for their prolific scoring Grand Prix ace Ryan Sullivan, who sustained a broken collar-bone in a crash in Sweden on Tuesday.

For the second successive match, Eagles had to rely on a guest of their own to provide most of their points.

On Monday, it was Lee Richardson in the 60-30 rout at Poole, this time it was Todd Wiltshire, who finished with a paid 12 points as Eastbourne struggled to salvage anything from the match.

Once again, the biggest disappointment was skipper Joe Screen, who scored only three points for the second successive match.

Joonas Kylmakorpi was the best Eagle on show, scoring ten points from six rides, while Screen, David Norris and Dean Barker managed only ten between them.

Eagles took the first two heats with 4-2s by Wiltshire and Barker and then Adam Shields and Garry Stead.

The home side went 20-16 up, but Eagles levelled it with a 5-1 from Kylmakorpi and Norris in heat seven.

It was all downhill for the visitors after that, however, with Peterborough going 12 points up in the next four races.

Back-to-back wins by Wiltshire and another by Kylmakorpi at least secured the bonus point, but Panthers won with plenty in hand.

"We had too many riders off form again," said disgruntled Eastbourne boss Jon Cook.

Peterborough: Chris Harris 12, Gary Havelock 11, Piotr Protasiewicz 10, Shane Parker 8, Hans Andersen 7, Nigel Sadler 4.

Eastbourne: Todd Wiltshire 11, Joonas Kylmakorpi 10, Adam Shields 5, David Norris 4, Dean Barker 3, Joe Screen 3, Garry Stead 2.