Saints battled hard but went down to defeat, although all the talking points in this game will sadly once again be about VAR, but this is only half time as the old cliche says, so we are not out of it yet.
No one can argue with the spirit that Saints showed in this game against a Newcastle side who are well drilled and at the top of their game, but ultimately it was refereeing & VAR or lack of it that decided this tie.
Perhaps the first talking point came when Newcastle had the ball in the back of the net in the first half, VAR looked at it and decided that the ball had hit the players arm, TV replays showed that to be the right decision.
Then on the stroke of half time came a moment of controversy, Djenepo chased a ball down the left wing and Nick Pope in the visitors goal came flying out of his area, it cannot be denied he headed the ball, but his challenge was dangerous and reckless and flattened Djenepo, no one in the ground would have denied this was a foul, if it had been anywhere else on the pitch it would have been given, but referee Stuart Attwell, perhaps mindful of the fact he might have a difficult decision to make if he gave a foul, gave a throw in.
Attwell had no problem giving free kicks for far less challenges throughout the match, yet he bottled this one.
The second half saw Newcastle looking the most dangerous and that proved the case on 73 minutes, when Duje Caleta- Car was outpaced down our left and Joelinton provided the finish to a great pull back across goal.
Would this finish Saints ? the answer was no, minutes later Adam Armstrong appeared to have scored and Saints Mary's erupted, but hang on another lengthy wait and the goal was disallowed.
I have watched this on TV several times and i am still not sure if Armstrong did handle, so the question is was this a clear and obvious error by the referee ? Perhaps I am biased but I would say that it wasn't clear in any way shape or form.
This rallied Saints a little though and they piled forward, Newcastle had to rely on Pope to make two outstanding saves to keep his side going in to the 2nd leg with a slender lead.
From a Saints viewpoint, it was slightly disappointing that Nathan Jones appeared to have not put out his full side, especially the absence of Romeo Lavia in the centre of the park, I think the thinking was to use him in the second half, but that was a risk.
It was good to see some of those who are not automatic first choices stepping up to the plate, Adam Armstrong was superb after replacing Djenepo, Ibrahima Diallo had a great game, although sadly his last two passes before coming off were appallingly into touch, prompting the man three rows behind me to scream "Get him off Jones" on the first of them, indeed this seemed to be his standard method of supporting the side throughout the game.
Late on Saints were in danger of getting caught on the break as they searched for an equaliser and that meant Caleta-Car having to take one for the team and get a second booking, down to 10 men was always going to be tricky, did we continue to push for an equaliser and risk getting caught on the break and leaving an uphill task in the second leg, or did we keep it tight and make sure the game was still in our sights for the trip to St James Park.
In injury team we seemed to opt for the latter, which in my view was the correct decision, although many in the crowd behind me seemed to think that this was wrong.
The return of Jan Bednarek was handy and he came on after Caleta- Car had departed, the Pole will be needed for the game against Blackpool on Saturday.
It will be an uphill battle for Saints at Newcastle next Tuesday, but the game is far from over, bizarely I think that we might actually stand a better chance chasing a 1-0 deficit than defending say a 2-0 lead.
Newcastle will now be wary of getting caught out, whereas if they had to chase the game they would be up for it from the start, of course you would always want to be in the lead, but football does have a phycological side to it.
In the main Saints fans can be proud of their team, Newcastle are one of the best teams in the country at the moment in terms of how they are playing, they do not get beat very often, they had already won here 4-1 in the League, we gave it our all and just didn't get the breaks.
If we put in the same effort in the 2nd leg, then we might perhaps shock a few people, the game is only at half time, we have a better record away from home than at St Mary's, stranger things have happened.