Under-18s coach Danny Butterfield hailed a characterful performance, in the wake of his young charges victory over London counterparts West Ham.
The teenagers overcame a double first-half blow, after conceding the opener and suffering a dubious sending off, to emerge comfortable winners by virtue of goals from Michael Obafemi - his twelfth of the season - Harlem Hale and Jonathan Afolabi.
While asserting that his young side were deserving of maximum points, Butterfield acknowledged that Saints will need to sharpen up defensively in order to extend their recent purple patch beyond today's result.
"The way we've played second half, we definitely deserved the win," the ex-Saints defender began.
"There is a lot to learn from a situation like that, when the referee makes such erratic decisions. But it is a learning curve; emotionally the boys have got to deal with the sending off.
"The leveller gave us a lift. For their character building, it is sometimes helpful to go a goal down, they reacted well. They remained competitive, which is a big plus, but we have to be better defensively so we aren't going behind in games.
"It was important we got a positive result before the Youth Cup tie next week - although I didn't think we were completely at the levels shown before the Christmas break.
"Plenty to learn and the boys need to use today as a big kick start."
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