AT HALF-TIME last night the Happy Mondays were blaring out of the St Mary's PA system singing "You're twisting my melon, man." It seemed quite apt.

Saints had a stiff learning curve as a re-introduction to European football and at half-time they seemed thoroughly confused.

Steaua Bucharest were playing the 'traditional European game' and playing it well.

The Romanians slowed down the tempo, kept the ball and, if that wasn't bad enough, were playing a totally baffling formation that varied from a 3-5-2 to a 4-4-2 to a 6-3-1-1 to a goodness knows what.

And they'd got a vital away goal.

But during the break Saints got their melons untwisted, man, and got to grips with what UEFA Cup football is all about.

Nobody could be blamed for not knowing quite what to expect from the Romanians, or from this whole adventure.

But they have a much better idea now.

This result, without doubt, favours Steaua who will probably try and repeat their qualifying win against Belarrusians Nemangrodno when they held out for a 0-0 draw in the second leg at home after a 1-1 in the first.

But Saints now know they can score and will be much the wiser should they get through in Bucharest in just under three weeks time.

The un-English way in which the Romanian League table-toppers played football was an education for everybody in the ground and most certainly the fans.

Steaua can certainly play - they are not in this competition to make up the numbers but are seriously good footballers.

Even in their own penalty area, to sometimes near suicidal consequences, they try and pass the ball quickly - it's hard to remember a single long ball from them all night.

They were happy to work the ball forward and, if nothing was on, turn around and work it back.

They were happy to string a line of players along the penalty area when they were defending, concede the first ball and try and make Saints pass through them.

But they were also not the most convincing in defence, especially in the second half when Saints started to impose their authority on the game.

As early as the sixth minute the visitors worried the Saints faithful, enthusiastically supporting their team's first European tie for 19 years.

Claudiu Raducanu latched on to a beautifully-flighted ball but his shot was turned wide by the diving Paul Jones.

But Raducanu sent the 100 or so noisy Romanian fans in St Mary's delirious when he gave his side the lead on 20 minutes.

Florentin Dumitru was played in down the right side and whipped in a cross which Raducanu buried with a diving header - in the process becoming the first opponent to score at St Mary's since April.

From that point on it seemed that Steaua were more than happy to knock the ball around without much attacking intent for the remaining 70 minutes.

And their tactics were working for most of the rest of the first half as they restricted Saints to speculative long range efforts and a few badly taken set-pieces.

The nearest Saints came was when the recalled Anders Svensson's drive cannoned off a Steaua defender and fell to Kevin Phillips, whose close range shot was well saved by the keeper.

Gordon Strachan got his side in at half-time 1-0 down and got them playing more like they can do.

The game was level seven minutes after the break but it was really a comedy of errors from the away team.

Having given the ball away terribly in the final third of their half once, Steaua won it back but then presented it straight to Phillips on the edge of the area.

The Saints striker was pushed wide as he moved into the area and hit a shot which the keeper somehow conspired to let squirm through his hands as he dived to stop it.

James Beattie, Michael Svensson and Phillips all threatened before the end while Steaua rarely created anything.

Tempers started to get a little frayed towards the end as the Romanians lay in agony after most challenges and used every trick in the book to try and get an advantage and run the clock down.

But I guess that's another lesson in Europe - it's distasteful, but what you have to expect to face.

It's not going to be an easy second leg for Saints but they showed enough to know they still have every chance of progressing to the second round.