Saints reserves steamrollered their West Ham counterparts last night as they scored three goals in the first 20 minutes to set up a comfortable 3-0 victory.

The first came after only 26 seconds when Andrei Kanchelskis picked up the ball and ran from inside his own half.

As would become a familiar sight throughout the night, the Hammers defence looked more than a bit lost and let the Russian keep going until he reached 20 yards out and toe- poked a low shot into the keeper's bottom left hand corner.

Reserve team coach Steve Wigley said: "It was a great finish. We're always saying to the young lads that the best finish in football can be a toe poke.

"The keeper can't get it and it takes him by surprise."

It was 2-0 after 13 minutes when Don Hutchison, making his return from injury and the only big name on display for Glenn Roeder's men, chased Paul Williams who picked up the ball after Anton Ferdinand - brother of Rio - had headed Garry Monk's header off the line.

Williams was heading towards the corner flag but Hutchison needlessly tripped him from behind and Kevin Davies duly dispatched from the spot, finding the same corner as Kanchelskis and sending the keeper the wrong way.

Every time Saints attacked they looked as if they would score and it took only three minutes until they did again.

Jay Lucas got to the by-line and crossed for Davies to tap home his second.

There were plenty more near misses throughout the night but the game died in the second half as the Hammers got to grips with their task and Saints eased off.

In fact there could have been a reply from the visitors had it not been for two blinding saves from Saints' 17-year-old keeper Gareth Williams.

Wigley surmised: "The result was definitely a fair reflection of the game. It could have been a lot more.

"In the first half I thought we played very well and were stronger than them in all departments and could have scored more goals. Second half we just took our foot off the pedal.

"We were never going to lose but we had worked so hard in the first half to get ourselves in a great position.

"It's not often in this game you get in a position like that but in the second half we should have kept the ball better than we did."