South started their season with a decent performance and a score draw in a friendly against Bishop's Stortford.

Many of the team had benefitted from playing regular summer hockey so there was little rust on show as South made a solid start to the match and seemed to slot into the chosen formation straight away. Ta and Halsop showed lots of promise up front, making some intuitive runs and frequently getting in behind the Stortford back line. The midfield matched up well to their opponents in both attack and defence and, as usual, the South defence looked solid throughout.

Jack Robertson and Chris Graveling marshalled things with confidence and rarely gave the ball away allowing players further up the field to make runs into space with confidence. If South could have moved the ball on a fraction earlier possession could have been turned into shots with more frequency. As it was, South were at their best on the break when the pace throughout the team could make an impact.

From one such break South took the lead after the ball fell to Williams in the D. His reverse stick shot may have hit a defender's stick on the way in but without the benefit of TV replays he was quite right to claim it! South looked strong for the remainder of the half and could have added to their lead on the break or from a short corner. Shin Kim's drag flick offered an interesting alternative at short corners and 3/3 first half efforts resulted in a shot on target, a further promising sign for the season ahead.

After half time Stortford grabbed an equaliser from a short corner, a fair reward for some of their positive attacking play in and around South's defensive third. The two teams exchanged chances thereafter with the very best chance reserved for the final few seconds of the game when Nick Venner would have won it but for a fine save from the Stortford keeper.

All in all a fair result and a decent start to the season with plenty of positives.