All five of Surbiton’s current England internationals each played in one of two friendly games against France at the National Sports Centre in Bisham Abbey near Marlow last week.

Defender Richard Alexander and attacker James Tindall were in the 16-man squad that posted a 5-0 victory in the opening fixture on Tuesday afternoon after leading 2-0 at the interval, although neither was on the scoresheet.

England converted three of their four penalty corners, two by East Grinstead’s Ashley Jackson (25th and 61st minutes) and one by Reading’s Richard Mantell (54th minute), sandwiched between open-play goals from Bowdon’s Simon Egerton (20th minute) and Instonians’ Mark Gleghorne (63rd minute).

France failed to score from any of their four penalty corners (three in the first half to England’s two in each half).

The other three Surbiton players – forward Matt Daly, midfielder Rob Moore and defender Ben Hawes – were in the 18-man squad on Wednesday afternoon.

Moore (open play, 16th minute) and Daly (penalty corner, 33rd minute) scored either side of a Julien Boyer penalty corner (24th minute) and Nicolas Martin Brisac’s open-play goal (27th minute) to make the score 2-2 at the interval.

Brisac deflected in what proved the winner from a Frederic Soyez free hit seven minutes into the second half.

But, on balance of play, England (ranked seventh in the world and fourth in Europe) should at least have equalised.

Having scored from one of two first-half penalty corners, they failed from all four in the second half.

France (ranked 17th in the world and sixth in Europe) forced four penalty corners in the first half (one converted), but none in the second.

England, with Surbiton’s five players making up the second most from any one club in the country’s 30-stromg training squad, are busy preparing for the EuroHockey Nations Championship in Amsterdam (in which France are also competing, but not in England’s pool) from 22-30 August, with another 13 home games to play before then.

These continue this week at Cannock Hockey Club against Pakistan, world-ranked one higher than England, starting with a friendly yesterday, followed by three full internationals (with caps awarded) on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (all at 7pm).

Meantime, Surbiton’s other two internationals have been engaged in the Celtic Cup played in Edinburgh over the past weekend: Allan Dick of Scotland (ranked 23rd in the world and 10th in Europe) and Andy Cornick of Wales (ranked 30th in the world and 15th in Europe).

Also involved were former players Surbiton players Chris Bowen (last season with Havant) for Wales, plus Fergus Dunn (last season with FC Barcelona) for Scotland.

All four hope to retain their places in their respective squads for the second-tier EuroHockey Nations Trophy, to be hosted by Wales in Wrexham from August 1-8.

Over the weekend, Dunn scored a final-minute equaliser from a short corner to enable the host country to draw 3-3 with Ireland in the last game of the tournament on Sunday.

But, having drawn 1-1 with Wales on Friday, it was only enough for them to finish second to their opponents, despite having beaten France 3-2 on Saturday.

Wales lost 2-3 to Ireland on Saturday and France on Sunday to finish bottom of the four competing countries.

Champions Ireland beat France 3-1 on Friday in the tournament’s opening game.