As is their namesake, this game was a pious, honourable and refrained affair. We should have expected this as we learnt on the away game quiz (kindly provided by our esteemed captain) that St Neot was a ninth century monk who performed such miracles as ‘deer pulled by plough’ and ‘repelled hunting dog’.

South started brightly taking an early lead from new signing Jacko, after a Creed/Lamming goal-keeper shuffle resulted in the ball coming loose at the top of the D and a swift strike defeating the out of position keeper. Jacko almost got the second minutes later with a tight angle shot from the right preceded by shouts of ‘It’s alright lads, he’s got nothing’, and followed up with ‘He might have something’ as the ball careened past the post at head height. Oli, however, did convert at the end of the first half with a deft finish in the left corner. Before the whistle blew for oranges, the Saints had got one back though.

The half time talk centred on words of calming reassurance from Captain Aston, as the mature experienced leader of the pack, he spoke of discipline, restraint and composure. All things we channelled from the Saint’s performance.

The second half opened with a Saints penalty corner and some nerves showing on the South side. Fortunately, the Saints injector misfired and any equalising of the score was never to come. In fact, this remained the story of the Saints numerous penalty corners of this half, although they scored one more, it was after we’d gone 3-1 ahead. The rest of the Saints corners were stopped by the human crab that is Dean or failed to challenge the old guard of Richer and Maz holding up the defence.

Ed had a cracking debut for the twos and scored the third goal, after losing his man in the D and then in a slightly off-balanced reverse strike stunned the keeper (and the rest of the team) with this lifted ball. This earned him the coveted Man of the Match award.

Jim got the fourth after a well placed through-ball from Pearson, he found himself in open space in the D and slotted past the approaching keeper and into the goal.

Whilst important for all games, this one was very much defined by our ability to maintain discipline and we achieved this in leaps and bounds. Overall a great start to the season against a challenging oppo, who we have a lot of prior experience.

One thing worth noting and that we didn’t learn in the away team quiz was that it seems the bones of St Neot were stolen from Cornwall to set up a lucrative priory and pilgrimage in the local area. Luckily, nothing quite so disreputable was even attempted on Saturday.