Claude Puel rolled the dice with his team selection against Norwich City in the FA Cup replay and although it was late it paid off.
The first question that was answered for Saints fans before the cup game against Norwich was the commitment of Jose Fonte to the Saints cause when the Captain was once again nowhere to be seen either in the starting line up or on the bench, although the latter did see Florin Gardos taking his place after almost two years since his last appearance on the pitch.
This meant that Puel had to go with a very inexperienced defence as he once again rang the changes.
You could understand why he did though with three matches in seven days this was the least important and the most winnable of the three and Puel was anxious to ensure that key members of the squad came through without injury or suspension from a sending off.
That meant that Jack Stephens partnered Yoshida in the centre of the defence and Harry Lewis kept his place in goal from the first game at Carrow Road.
With the Kingsland closed St Mary's looked desolate and those there looked like they were attending due to a sense of duty rather than with any enthusiasm.
The game soon settled into a familiar pattern with Saints taking control and Norwich being pushed back and unable to mount many meaningful attacks, indeed they only had 3 shots on goal, none on target and in the second half I cannot remember Harry Lewis touching the ball.
But once again Saints could not seem to break through they huffed and puffed but with 10 men behind the ball they rarely created anything of note.
It looked like it was going to be one of those nights again until with injury time being played suddenly we had a couple of strokes of luck and Shane Long won the tie, it was deserved in terms of domination with Saints having 63% possession, but not in terms of creativity.
Too often we failed to turn good situations into clear cut chances with either a poor delivery of the ball into the box or abysmal finishing.
We looked a side lacking confidence and in these situations you need a stroke of luck and we got it right at the end, it is these sort of things that turn seasons and hopefully Long's goal will lead to him going on a goal scoring run, that is if Puel pays him on Sunday !
At the back we were rarely tested although Jack Stephens looked the part in the centre of the defence and looked comfortable on the ball, it will be interesting to see him up against a better side, but he did show what he has.
Josh Sims had a reasonable game, however it has to be noted that he lost possession a lot in the final third, nothing wrong with this it was good to see him have a go, but if it had been Nathan Redmond doing it he would be crucified.
All in all an awful game even though Saints dominated, but the plus points are that we won, we got through without any apparent injuries and that hopefully we can now build on this win and get some sort of continuity to our game and confidence.