One Surbiton player was in each squad as England beat Wales 3-2 at the National Sports Centre in Bisham Abbey on Sunday.

But, since it was a friendly international, no caps were awarded with each nation allowed to use rolling substitutes (with only 11 players on the pitch at any one time) from an agreed squad total more than the normal 16.

Wales - with Surbiton’s Andy Cornick among their 20 players (including two goalkeepers) used over the 70 minutes – despite standing only 30th in the world rankings, stunned their hosts, who are ranked seventh, by leading 2-1 at the interval.

After Cannock’s Richard Lane put England into a second-minute lead from open play, the Welsh fought back well with an open-play goal from Cardiff & UWIC’s Jow Naughalty in the eighth minute and then Southgate’s Rick Gay converting his country’s only penalty corner of the match two minutes before the interval.

But English honour was restored with Bowdon’s Simon Egerton scoring in the fifth minute of the second half and then Cannock’s Gareth Andrew notching what proved to be the winner four minutes later, both goals from open play.

However, England, who failed from all their three penalty corners in the first half as well as six in the second, should really have won by more, although, to be fair, none of their regular set piece specialists were in their 18-man squad, which included two keepers, one of whom wasn’t used.

In fact England included all 10 of their 30-strong European training squad who did not appear in either of the two Tests against the Australians in Nottingham last week, including, intriguingly, two Irish internationals seeking to change their registration to England in time to qualify for Great Britain for the London 2012 Olympics.

Only Rob Moore among Surbiton’s five remaining Olympians was in Sunday’s squad.

But his four Beijing team-mates – Richard Alexander, Matt Daly, Ben Hawes and James Tindall – are also all in consideration for the England squads scheduled to play two more friendly internationals at Bisham Abbey, this time against France, at 4pm this Tuesday and Wednesday.

However, for Surbiton’s one England U21 international, defender Ben Tibble, it is a time for a well-deserved rest after returning from the Far East this Monday having played in all his country’s eight games over 13 days during the Junior World Cup.

Like Tibble, who is just 18, England’s 18-strong squad was a very young one, so it was not surprising that after losing two, drawing one and only winning one of their four preliminary round pool C matches and then losing their first two non-medal round pool G games, all held in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, they went into their final two games knowing they were fighting for only 13th to 16th place among the 20 competing countries.

In the event, a final devastating pool G loss 0-9 to India across the border in Singapore last Friday left them to play off for 15th-16th place back in Johor on Friday.

Despite losing to South Africa to finish 16th, the team redeemed itself by holding its opponents to 2-2 after extra time and only eventually going down 5-6 on penalty strokes.