Sidmouth and Ottery Hockey Club (SOHC) men’s 3rd XI shared six goals with hosts, and third in the table, ECV Hornets.

The team travelled into Exeter with the confidence that they have banked from recent performances and the previous outing’s win.

Indeed, SOHC made a bright start and put the home goal under considerable pressure only for the opposition to break away and take the lead, albeit following a defensive error. A second goal was added and Hornets held a two-goal advantage at half-time. After the break it was SOHC who began brightly and they halved the deficit with a superb solo effort from Josh Cressall.

Buoyed by the goal, SOHC stayed on the front foot and it was no more than they deserved when Greg Seward capitalised on a rebound after a great team move down the right flank to drill home the equaliser. Shortly after restoring parity, SOHC took the lead with a close range finish from Matthew Offer-Hoar.

It was then that a lack of replacements on the bench came into play for SOHC! With a bare 11 on duty and one of them, Simon Olive, playing despite being ill, the team were guilty of making some basic, and sloppy, errors and one of these was punished late on by Hornets for honours to end even.