Some would blame the roads and the quality of the driving, but for whatever reason the South M1's turned up not entirely ready for the starting whistle. There's a lot to be said for training at the pace you want to play the game.

After a sluggish warm-up South struggled to get into the game for the first 20 minutes. By half time we found ourselves 0-2 down after one scrappy and one well deflected goal from Wisbech. The skipper had also aggravated a calf injury that meant he had to spend the second half sitting up front.

The pep talk focused on the fact that we needed to win games like these to stay near the top of the league and with a bit of grit, determination and percentage hockey we would be able to bring ourselves back from the brink of defeat.

These words seemed to rouse something as in the second half South were much more commanding. With plenty of chances in the opposition's final third and many, many attacking short corners it was disappointing that South did not come up with enough goals to win but Jack and Bhav took their chances to level the score.

Lessons learnt this week: warming up is key; scoring goals actually helps; Chris Pearson does terrible farts.

And from our absent team-mates - the alternative 'match' report...

A very successful day. Groom clearly punching well above his weight (and that’s a lot of weight). Father of bride’s speech was excellent, groom’s was acceptable, best man’s speech was average. Food was solid, as was the wine and champagne. Hawkes looked dashing in his lounge suit. Colin is almost as brilliant a photographer as he is a hockey coach. All in all it was well worth making the trip.