All things considered the blue and golds really had no right to be in Saturday's round nine clash at Orange Hockey centre, let alone salvage a draw from it.

Ex-Services went into the clash with the bare minimum 11 players and they fell 2-nil behind in the blink of an eye too, after Souths' Sophie McCauley backed her Astley Cup heroics on Friday with an early, first-quarter brace.

But the home side lifted and equalised in the second quarter, and while Souths hit back again just before the half-time break the clash remained firmly in the balance after a scoreless third term.

Leading 3-2 Souths had their chances in the final term but couldn't capitalise and with just 90 seconds remaining on the clock Shian Duboc found the back of the net to draw level, the Orange side holding out one last two blues' raid to snatch the draw.

Having no substitutes was a key point for Barrett, but she didn't highlight how much running it forced her troops her to do as a result.

"Right from the start we made a point of not talking about the fact we had no subs and definitely not talking about umpires, or anything like that. We didn't want to have any excuses, we just wanted to focus on doing our jobs," Barrett said.

"Honestly that's been a difficult thing in the past and there's been times they haven't trusted each other, but [on Saturday] they really trusted their ability and played for each other and it made a big difference.

"Performance wise and in those terms I hope it is a turning point. We've been close all year, but we've been working on playing a particular style of hockey and the discipline hasn't always been there. Last week was an improvement though and then [Saturday] was even better, we capitalised.

"I'm stoked, I'm very proud of the effort."

As you'd expect considering his side blew a 2-nil first-quarter lead Souths coach Chris Stafford cut a pretty disappointed figure after the clash, saying "the really key thing for us in how that played out was patience, or lack of it".

"We went 2-nil up and then I think we just kind of thought we'd get to 10-nil or something and it broke down a bit, we just weren't patient enough in the way we were playing and we let them back into it," Stafford said.

"We could've made some better decisions and even though I did think we missed out on a couple of short corners we maybe should've been given, we weren't patient enough and didn't execute.

"It was our first time playing on the Orange surface this year too, and even though I'm sure all the Bathurst sides sound like we're whinging when we talk about that it really does make a difference and takes some getting used to.

"We've got two more games [at Orange] though, so we'll take what we can from [Saturday's] game and move forward."

Just a day after she scored a last-ditch goal to force a remarkable 1-all draw in Friday's Astley Cup fixture, McCauley slotted two quick-fire goals to give Souths a strong buffer to work with in the opening term.

They dominated that period too, and even Barrett admitted she was a touch worried the two blues were going to produce a monumental performance.

"I did get a bit worried, because it can definitely get in your head when you go down by a couple of goals early on. But we got back to 2-1 and you could see from there the flow-on, we started being a bit more patient and setting up a bit," she said.

WATCH: Tiff Atkinson puts away Ex-Services' second goal against Bathurst Souths on Saturday...

That first goal came off the stick of Leanne Kennewell from a short corner just three minutes into the second quarter. Eight minutes later Ex-Services drew level from another short corner, this time Tiff Atkinson put the opportunity away.

The blue and golds had one more short corner in that second term but it just sailed wide, before Souths picked up their third through Danielle Fisher against the run of play on the stroke of the main break.

That could easily have been a back-breaker for the under-staffed Ex-Services outfit but that fought on bravely, turning the two blues away and creating opportunities of their own, although neither side found the back of the net in the third period.

Neither side did that for the first 13 or so minutes of the final quarter either, until Duboc rammed home the equaliser with little over a minute remaining.