We spent the first ten minutes of this game pushing forward, putting the Saints' defence under pressure. However we were making bad decisions in the final third, not looking to upgrade when getting into the circle and, when we did get a shooting opportunity, snatching at chances by trying to hit the cover off the ball. St Neots showed us how it was done with their first serious attack being much more clinical. One-nil.

We pushed on again after that but if anything were becoming even more direct in our play, which was allowing St Neots' strong tacklers to break up our thrusts. Ten minutes more of this ended with St Neots launching another counter. Two-nil.

The half time talk was that we could work out way back into the game, that we had conceded twice to the only two shots the hosts had had, but it would need teamwork rather than individual play to do it. A minute after the restart, St Neots made it three-nil.

We pulled one back with just over ten minutes to go when Dave’s straight strike from a penalty corner found the backboard. Would this inspire a comeback? No. What it did was prompt the best ten minutes of hockey of the match but that came from the Saints, who showed the M3s how to play as a team, holding the ball and moving it around calmly to players in space. Any further threat from the visitors was thereby snuffed out.

The final whistle saw South retreating to the dressing rooms wondering how we could play so badly and determined to put things right next week against City.