Saints kept their place at the top of the group with a hard fought goaliess draw in Be'er Sheba.
Claude Puel once again rang the changes for a midweek game and took a gamble that his young side would be up to the task of getting a result against what might be the surprise team of the group.
It wasn't a pretty game or an exciting performance for the 350 or so grovelling fans who has nothing behind them outside the stadium other than desert, bur it was a satisfying one in that it showed that Saints can make wholesale changes and still be competitive.
In truth neither side created much of note apart from a couple of speculative efforts each, the home side had plenty of gusto but Saints stuck manfully to their task.
The manager again showed he has tactical nous when he made a change shortly after the half hour mark, he saw that he needed a bit more experience and ability to not only keep the ball but create chances and took off Jake Hesketh and brought on Dusan Tadic.
This gave Saints better balance and from then on in, one hairy moment in the second half aside they never looked like losing the game, indeed they could have easily won it.
But they went to do a job and did it superb marshalled by Vigil Van Dijk they closed the game out and kept a fifth consecutive clean sheet.
There are still questions to be asked about the side in the attacking third, but with the players who were out back again they should be soon sorted.
This was more of an event than a game for the Saints fans present and one that they will be proud to say they went to, yea Inter Milan will be an experience, but travelling to a different continent to support the team was something else and the fans made themselves heard in a noisy atmosphere.
We now continue the season at Leicester and there is a feeling that this side might just be better than last season in terms of what it can achieve, yes perhaps it is lacking the flair of Sadio Mane but we are getting results whilst still finding our feet and that is something that bodes well.