CREWE 1 - SAINTS 1

On Friday night many of the fans, officials and media that were travelling to watch the first team take on Crewe the following day decamped to Anfield.

The grand old home of Liverpool, a magical place in football, was host to Saints' under-18 FA Youth Cup semi-final first leg against the Reds.

The game itself was a belter, end to end, chances galore and good fun.

To be sat in that wonderful stadium once again was a pleasure for all who were there.

The next day it was the turn of the first team.

And, from the beauty of Anfield, we had the beast.

Crewe's tiny stadium, where one massive stand dominates, is a throwback to an era that doesn't relate to the Premiership. It's another world away.

You had to pinch yourself to remember that after all these years it is the youth team that are playing at Anfield, while the first team are at Crewe.

There was even half the number of fans at Anfield for the youth game that there were at Crewe, and bearing in mind the Saints travelling contingent made up a quarter of the attendance for the first team that was quite something.

As well being surreal not seeing the first team playing at Anfield, it was equally bizarre to think that they can go away from home and not play in front of 30,000 or 60,000 fans but 6,500.

The only time Saints would normally play in front of so few is in minor pre-season matches.

However, the first team's match was also a good one - open, entertaining and littered with chances.

For the second week running Saints got their noses in front but instead of going on to secure the three points, ended up with a 1-1 draw and just one point to show for it all.

George Burley was clearly in the mood for a win against the Championship's bottom club, sending out his team with three recognised strikers - Dexter Blackstock and Grzegorz Rasiak up front and Peter Madsen in an attacking right midfield role.

It was the performance of Madsen that was probably the brightest spot of the afternoon.

He really got at Crewe in midfield but looked even better when switching up front where he and Rasiak look a good pairing.

It was from that position that Madsen opened the scoring on 61 minutes, converting neatly at the far post after a low curling ball from deep into the box by Rasiak.

Rasiak himself could easily have had a hat-trick on another day - in fact he could have had it in the first 12 minutes as he saw a shot saved, one drop just wide and another smack against the underside of the bar and bounce away to safety.

Blackstock had an effort cleared off the line in the first half as well, while Crewe came close through Gareth Taylor, first stopped by a superb save from Paul Smith and then by inexplicably putting his rebound over from just yards out when it seemed easier to score.

Having taken the lead just after the hour mark Saints started to look even more superior than their opponents.

They got the ball down and were passing it around nicely, teasing and probing for an opening for a second goal that would have killed the game off.

But suddenly they seemed to lose a lot of confidence.

As happened the previous week the entire team dropped deep and Crewe were able to get on top.

They threatened a couple of times - Smith making another good save - but after several warnings came the equaliser.

A routine high ball was flicked on and Luke Rodgers found himself running in goal and with the time and space to measure a shot that found its way in.

After Crewe had equalised and moments later had a shot cleared off the line, Saints were spurred into action. As the game reached its closing stages it seemed the visitors were the only team going to win it.

But now they couldn't create another chance to miss and in the end had to settle for a point.

This latest result made it 18 draws out of 37 Championship matches for Saints this season.

Put that another way, if they had turned just eight of those draws into wins, as they so could easily have done so many times this season, they'd be in the play-off places right now.

It's surreal on so many levels.