SUTTON UTD 1 (Dundas 21), SOUTHAMPTON 1. Referee: C Hicks. Attendance: 876                                  

Faced with a side that included ten players who could justifiably stake claims to regular first team places for this season’s League One favourites, Sutton gave an excellent account of themselves on Saturday and fully deserved the draw to share the President’s Trophy with Southampton. The more the game went on in the second half the more likely it looked that Saints might grab the winner and turn the game round after trailing to a Craig Dundas goal at half time, but some fine goalkeeping from Kevin Scriven and one outstanding block from Tom Kavanagh ensured that U's had some reward for a performance that, particularly in the first half, stood worthy comparison with higher ranked opponents who looked decidedly uncomfortable. In front of a decent crowd and in warm conditions the game struggled to take off in the first half but after Dean Hammond had sent an early header over the bar U's saw more of the ball than  might have been expected and produced enough to trouble the centre back combination of Radhi Jaidi and Jose Fonte. In the 21^st minute a mistake by Jaidi, a member of the Tunisian side that won the African Cup of Nations in 2004, allowed a Tom Davis free kick to reach Dundas, who guided the ball past the scrambling Kelvin Davis and walked the ball in to the net. Much vaunted striker Ricky Lambert had his first sight of goal soon afterwards, his snap volley going well wide, but the closest to a second goal came at the other end three minutes before half time when Kennedy Adjei let fly from 25 yards after winning a tackle and saw the effort dip just over the bar. Without Karim El-Salahi, who was at a wedding, U's began the second half with the same line-up as had started the game, while Southampton made three changes to add to the enforced removal of the injured Ryan Dickson midway through the first half, and within three minutes the scores were level after a high challenge on Morgan Schneiderlin on the left led to an indirect free kick, which was drilled low in by Lambert and ended up in the net with the aid of a deflection as several players challenged on the six yard line. U's were almost back in front within three minutes as Adjei and Davis combined to set up Fola Orilonishe on the left corner of the penalty area, and his low shot hit the inside of the post and rebounded to safety. That was as close as they came to regaining the lead, and during the next half hour they made half a dozen substitutions, Jerson Dos Santos not that far away from reaching a quickly taken Davis free kick as he tried to deflect a header past replacement keeper Bartosz Bialkowski. The better chances fell to Southampton, however, and Scriven went down well to save from Lee Barnard before coming off his line quickly to smother Lambert’s shot after Orilonishe had lost possession near the corner flag. A third fine save came when he reacted well to keep out a Lee Holmes header, but it was Kavanagh who made the final decisive intervention to keep the scores level, blocking Paul Wotton’s shot inside the penalty area, although as U's failed to clear the danger Wotton fired just wide with a second chance.

Sutton: K Scriven, S Downer (sub S McKimm 83), A Bray (sub J Dos Santos 55), J Goodliffe, S Page, K Adjei (sub T Kavanagh 70), B Woods-Garness (sub A Slegg 60), T Davis, C Dundas (sub S Watts 79), R Jolly (sub A Costa 74), F Orilonishe. Southampton: K Davis (sub B Bialkowski H-T), D Butterfield, D Harding (sub J Mills H-T), M Schneiderlin, R Jaidi, J Fonte, A Oxlade-Chamberlain, R Dickson (sub R Doble 21) (sub L Barnard 63), R Lambert, D Hammond (sub P Wotton H-T), L Holmes.