The Sky Blues came saw and conquered at St Mary's as they took on a Saints U23 side and came out victors by three goals to one.

Both sides put out a team that contained a mixture of U23 players as well as experience for the fixture, Saints included Fraser Forster in goal, Yann Valery and Jake Vokins at the back as well as Josh Sims.

Saints looked the better side in the first half and dominated possession, taking the lead just before the break when Jake Vokins finished off a neat build up and it gave the home side a deserved half time advantage.

There was only one change at half time with Jankewit replacing Alfie Jones and for the first 15 minutes of the second period it was Saints who again dominated, but it was the Sky Blues who levelled the scores on the hour mark.

With 15 minutes to go Max Biamou using his pace to latch onto a lofted through-ball slotted home to make it 2-1 to the visitors.

Despite Saints continuing to dominate the ball, the counter proved effective for the Championship side, who exposed a weakness that Saints first side have had for the past couple of seasons and they added a third through a David Bremang header with two minutes to go.

All in all a disappointing afternoon for the U23 side, given the number of players we had on the pitch with first team experience, not to mention some of our promising youngsters and indeed Alfie Jones who spent last season out on loan with Gillingham, there was a feeling that we should have done better and after dominating the game for long periods we really should have won it.

Photo: Action Images

underweststand added 18:45 - Sep 1 it's all good practice. As long as we learn from our mistakes it'll help them improve. .........at least they didn't lose 3 points.
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erick added 19:09 - Sep 1 Fraser Forster and alfie Jones were hooked out in the first half while we were ahead and brought two 18 year olds, second half was majorly played by a very young side
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aceofthebase added 21:54 - Sep 1 How did you get to see the match Nick?
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SaintBrock added 16:52 - Sep 2 No urgency about our play at all, strolling around trying to walk the ball into the net is not only complacent arogance but alien to Ralph's style. Need to sharpen up and shape up. Not good enough.
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