After Long-Sutton 2nds' 9-0 drubbing at the hands of Ely City last week, South might well have hoped to be meeting an anxious team low on confidence this time round, but the Lincolnshire side were predictably unpredictable and came out looking like promotion contenders, with strong, direct running and positive wing play.

They were swiftly 2-0 up, the first goal arriving after two minutes when they retrieved a breakdown at a short corner and ping-ponged the ball round the D for a classic short-range strike and the second resulting from a fluke deflection that looped in just under the bar. South had not been without their chances, however, as Steve Fleck, Jim Thorpe from a short and Doug Leckie from the rebound had all forced the Sutton keeper into action.

But South always looked vulnerable and, before fifteen minutes were up, keeper Steve Parker had already had to put in two crunching tackles with the odds heavily stacked against him and Leckie had made a gallant double save on the goal-line to hold the home side at bay. The upper lip was kept fairly stiff over the next ten minutes as Thorpe and Chris Baker fed the busy Fleck for another shot on target and the rangy Rob Garrett nearly scored to the keeper's right; Parker then dismissed a dangerous cross to the wing and Veejay Agarwala set up a number of promising moves involving Baker, Mark Freer and the hard-working Ryan Thomas, who had nobly stayed on after the end of the university term to sample the rare delights of the northern fens.

Despite Chris Graveling's tireless work at the back, Sutton always looked to have the wherewithal to break through and this they did with a superbly-timed reverse shot on twenty-five minutes. Worse was to follow as an unmarked attacker gleefully converted a perfect cross to make it 4-0 and, though South once more hit the goalie with a good short after Thomas had narrowly failed to reach a ball teetering on the Sutton line, the home side conclusively wrapped up the half with a straight-through-the-middle fifth goal which emphasised their individual determination and will to win.

A rout threatened when Sutton's sixth goal, again marked by an absence of defensive cover, went in almost immediately after the break but South pulled back from the brink, winning a series of five short corners in as many minutes. From the fourth, Agarwala's neat angled push to the far post from Thorpe's switch found Fleck, who steered it cannily over the keeper to open South's account on forty-three minutes. Thomas went close on the next and South engineered a decent stretch of play when Agarwala, Garrett and Baker began to produce some crisp, one-time link-ups with good pace and vision.

Fleck shot just wide on fifty-five minutes, then South won another three shorts in quick succession but all of them drew regulation saves. Parker blocked a hard shot from the left of the circle on sixty-three minutes, and Graveling, Freer and John Benedikz - selflessly making the journey north in spite of illness - held firm on Sutton's other forays beyond the South twenty-five until the hosts won a fifth and final short a minute or so from the end. This was driven wide (as far as the sepulchral floodlighting would allow your correspondent to judge) but the result had been sealed long ago with that decisive first-half performance.