This was meant to be a game that Saints should fear, but in the end it turned out to be as easy a game as we have had all season.
AFC Bournemouth arrived at SMS for the first league meeting between the sides in over five decades feeling that they were the favourites and they almost caught Saints cold,slamming a ball against the post in the opening minutes and putting the rebound narrowly wide, little did we know then that this would be the last meaningful chance they would have as the Cherries ended the game without registering a shot on target and only 4 tame efforts wide.
Saints dominated from that early scare onwards, they looked comfortable defending when the visitors had the ball and they looked better going forward that they have done in a long while, although at key moments both Harding and Puncheon failed to deliver killer ball into the box on too many occasions and this is an area we need to address.
Other than that it was easy with the only surprise that it took two penalties to win it, Bournemouth fans will protest but from where i sat both looked cast iron, although in truth the Cherries were unlucky not to get a spot kick themselves which could have made for a tight last fifteen minutes.
But come the end of 90 minutes Saints were worthy winners and are now starting to show why they were pre season favourites, it was this weekend a year ago when we kick started our season with a home win against Gillingham and then followed it up with another three straight wins, this is what we need to do now and if we can we could end the month at least in the play off spots, possibly more.
The young pretenders had come to St Mary's with visions of glory as had been espoused by there Chairman, Saints finally did there talking where it matters, on the pitch, and hopefully will continue to do so over the coming months.