A trip to St Ives was greeted by Cambridge South 2s as an opportunity to get their first win of the season: St Ives 2s have been struggling in the league, getting points against the weaker teams only. True to recent form, South arrived at the pitch nice and early, greeted by a strangely empty astro for a midday game. Never ones to complain, the team proceeded to chuck aerials around the pitch, claiming it as a proper warm-up.

Whatever the warm-up, it seemed to work as the visitors were clearly faster out of the blocks than the home side. Within minutes of the starting whistle, South had won a short corner; slickly counting on the defenders inability to clear Tom Howell’s cannonball, injector Dom Nelson guided the ball over the line to give South an early lead. This only served to wake up St Ives, though, who came back at the visitors strongly; capitalising on South’s defence being in array more than organised, the home side used a quickly taken free hit to wander into the D and slot an equaliser past ‘keeper Shahbaz for yards out.

All square at half-time, South decided to strengthen their midfield and pledged to start marking properly. For a while, this resolve paid off, with the visitors the more dangerous team in the early second half. But then St Ives won a short, worked the ball to the far post and took the lead. Tabled turned, it was South that was fired up now, making numerous forays into opposition territory. Chances were created left, right and centre and in the end it was Dom again who put his name on the score sheet, lifting the ball over a prostrate ‘keeper from all of a yard out.

With about 15 minutes to go and the game was open to all takers, it was again South that was pressing harder. One could claim that luck - once again - was not with the visitors: several chances went narrowly wide of the mark, while most lookers-on would’ve agreed that South should’ve been awarded a few shorts (especially when a rampant Nick Venner got upended in the sort of tackle that even rugby referees disagree with). All attempts notwithstanding, the game ended in a rather disappointing draw.

Yet again, South stepped off the pitch feeling that they got a disappointing result out of a decent performance. The search for that elusive first win continues...