PAUL STURROCK banned his side from hitting long balls to Peter Crouch last night after seeing Saints "just lashing balls" to the 6ft 8in striker.

The Saints boss was clearly annoyed by his side's first-half display in the 2-1 friendly win over Swindon at the County Ground last night.

That was a result they only rescued with a much-improved second 45 minutes where the ball stayed on the deck.

Sturrock said: "The problem is that when you have a really big man up front players revert to type and we finished up the first half just lashing balls up to the boy Crouch.

"And to be fair I don't want them playing it in the air because for his height he's reasonably poor in the air.

"It finished up that we couldn't get service, couldn't keep the ball up the front, the midfield were dropping back to receive the pass so there was no support to the front players - so we were very disjointed.

"Second half we passed the ball and that was the difference.

"As soon as the midfield players started to take the ball Anders Svensson came to the show in the second half.

"And all of a sudden we looked a far better team, but problems always arise when you have that easy option to go to the front man.

"It's not an intention of anybody at this football club to play a long ball scenario, but it is easy to do that.

"I told them at half-time that in the second half they weren't allowed to play that ball at all and it worked."

Despite the injury to Marian Pahars, Jason Dodd came through 90 minutes unscathed, while 17-year-old Martin Cranie also looked assured in the centre of midfield.

"I'm pleased that Dodd came out of it and got a run-out - I thought the old soldier was excellent again," said Sturrock.

"Martin Cranie showed his versatility and did a very good job of passing the ball.

"That enables me to play him in other positions as well.

"I now know he can play left-back, right-back and centre midfield so I'm quite pleased."

Sturrock was also pleased with the second-half contribution of Svensson, but gave a mixed review to left-back Jelle van Damme.

"Anders has committed himself to his position now. He's very committed to winning his left-sided position.

"It's like a niche position for him and against Newcastle and Aston Villa he was one of the better players on the pitch.

"I think he's enjoying the freedom he gets playing in this position.

"Jelle is still raw. He dived in in the first minute and let somebody get to the by-line and he played long balls to Crouch most of the first half.

"But again he's 20 and we started to see the real him in the second half when he started to give us width and get crosses into the box."

Swedish international Mikael Nilsson was due to play last night, but international clearance didn't come through in time so he will definitely start Saturday's final friendly against Italians Chievo Verona at St Mary's.

Between now and then the first team are going to be taking a day off today before working hard on their shape ahead of Saturday.

"We haven't really had that much time to work on our back four and we have the time left until the start of the season to get a lot of work done," added Sturrock.

"We're resting all our players on Wednesday and hopefully on Thursday and Friday we can get a lot more shape work done on the ones that are playing on Saturday."