Marian Pahars completed his first 45 minutes in more than three months as the reserves defeated Leicester 2-1 last night.

The Latvian international has been plagued by ankle injuries for the past couple of years and has required surgery on three occasions to try and correct the problem.

Pahars thought he had put all his problems behind him this summer only to take a kick in the pre-season friendly at Swindon that has kept him out until now.

But in difficult conditions - bitterly cold at Kettering Town - he made his first, tentative steps back on the road to recovery.

The 28-year-old fans' favourite, a club top scorer in two of the three seasons before he got injured, came off at half-time on the winning side.

Reserve team coach Stewart Henderson said: "Marian did OK. He was neat and tidy with most of the things that he did, but it was a very bobbly surface which probably didn't suit a player just coming back from injury.

"Psychologically this will be an important step for him and he is obviously a very talented player but there is still a little way to go before he will be ready for the first team.

"He needs a couple more matches under his belt and a few more weeks training with the first team and just to get back into that routine really.

"Whenever any player comes back from injury they have got to be confident that they have completely got over the problem that they had, so hopefully this was a step towards that for him."

Andrew Surman fired Saints into the lead on 25 minutes with a spectacular 20-yard free kick but Leicester levelled 20 minutes into the second half with a heavily deflected free kick.

However, Peter Crouch continued his impressive scoring record for the second string by hitting the winner later in the game.

Henderson added: "Overall I thought we had the better chances and it was a match that I felt we deserved to win.

"In the first half we only really had half chances, but after the break there weretwo or three good openings and Crouchy took his goal well.

"Individually we did quite well and I felt that Kenwyne Jones and Eddie Anaclet both did particularly well in positions that were fairly new to them.

"I asked Kenwyne to play at centre-half tonight and he adapted to it very well and Eddie gave a very solid performance at left back."

Saints: Smith, Baird, Anaclet, Cranie, Jones, Pahars (Gillett 45), Prutton, Folly, Surman, Crouch, Ormerod. Unused subs: Best, McNeil, Davies.