There will be some who will be bemoaning a lack of quality for Saints in this game, but all that really mattered was that we didn't lose and gained our first point after 4 straight defeats, it gives us something to build on.
West Ham may have been missing a few players, but they arrived at St Mary's full of confidence after a run of wins, Saints team was fairly predictable, although Ralph did spring the odd surprise, recalling Moi Elyounoussi in place of Stuart Armstrong and sticking with Maitland-Niles as a holding midfielder.
The Hammers started like a train, they caught us right from the kick off and had us on the back foot for several minutes, but we gained our composure and got a grip on the game, so when Romain Perraud scored his 25 yarder on 20 minutes it was certainly not against the run of play and that gave us impetus and we dominated much of the rest of the first half.
But West Ham still where a threat and they broke just before the break and Armel Bella-Kotchap had to somehow make a last ditch tackle to ensure they never got in on goal, unfortunately it would be his last action and he damaged his shoulder and had to go off.
This was not good but Caleta- Car came on and slotted in well, he didn't have an outstanding game, but he did his job and did we need him too in the second half as West Ham took a grip on the game.
The second half started well for Saints, but as it progressed the Hammers started to get more and more possession and tried to make it tell, last season this would have been the sort of game we would have capitulated in, but we held firm in the main although it was not pretty to watch.
In the 64th minute though the away side equalised with a curling shot that gave Bazunu no chance and by now West Ham were in command, so much so that it took Ralph Hasenhuttl almost 5 minutes to be able to get his substitutes on the pitch, he had them lined up after 69 minutes, but such was the visitors dominance it was the 74 minute before he could do so as the Hammers poured forward and when the ball did go out it was either for a corner or throw in to them and Ralph didn't break the golden rule of never make substitutions when you are defending.
He brought on four players, you don't see this very often in the Premier League, changing almost half of the outfield players at once, but the changes brought fresh legs and in the final 15 minutes we got back on an even keel and even had chances to win it ourselves.
David Moyes had a moan about Saints goal claiming that it was a foul throw by Kyle Walker Peters and that VAR should have picked that up and disallowed the goal, if VAR starts to check throw ins then there is something wrong with the game, perhaps Moyes would have been better questioning why the linesman standing only feet away didn't pick it up or for that matter the referee.
Indeed Saints could have a claim themselves as to why the game wasn't stopped when the ball hit the referee seconds before the equaliser, Saints certainly stopped for a second assuming that the game would be stopped, but the referee waived play on and as mentioned seconds later the ball was in the back of our net.
So relief for Saints fans when the final whistle went, but the real relief was the rot had been stopped and we had shown we can match sides, yes West Ham did dominate for a long period, but we didn't collapse, the Hammers had 25 shots yet only 4 of them were on target, that showed that we battled hard to stop their possession turning into clear chances, also they went for the aerial bombardment route at times and we stood up to that.
From our perspective we had 10 shots but we had 8 of them on target, Che Adams battling hard in the first half had two of them and saw the first canon off the legs of the keeper and the second saw him make a brilliant reaction save.
This was a game where we took a step forward, we are at a crucial stage of the season and we need to take the positives and not allow the negatives to drag us down, those that say Ralph has lost the dressing room had no supporting evidence in this game, it was a team that had heart and battled for every inch of ground even when it was backs to the wall.
It is a young team and that is the big problem, there was not enough Premier league experience on show, but with every game comes lessons learned and this side will get better.
The bad note of the day was that we remain in the bottom three, but the only table that counts is the final one, not the one after a quarter of the season has gone, as we know from topping the table ourselves two years ago at this stage of the campaign.
When we did that there was no one saying that we were title challengers, so being in the bottom three doesn't mean we are going to stay there.
Of course there are still things at St Mary's that are not yet quite right, but this was a start, we have to build on that by going to Bournemouth on Wednesday night and winning, if we do that then we will have taken another big step forward.