SAINTS' past well and truly put one over Saints' present last night as the Tin Man struck gold.

Agustin Delgado, last seen by Saints fans coming on as a late substitute in a 0-0 draw with Leicester in January 2004, was again waking up today a national hero.

He set up the first and scored the second as Ecuador defeated Poland 2-0 in their opening Group A game in Germany.

Current Saints striker Grzegorz Rasiak was an unused sub for the Poles, who need a miracle to qualify.

With Germany also defeating Costa Rica earlier on the opening day of World Cup 2006, it sets-up the intriguing proposition of Ecuador and Delgado potentially coming up against England in the second round.

Few will ever forget Delgado's time at Saints and not for his on-pitch activities.

He is still the club's second biggest signing at a whopping £3.5m, but was a total disaster at St Mary's.

Injuries and off-field disruption, that twice included going AWOL, meant that Delgado's value at Southampton was only of the nuisance variety.

In not far off of three years at Saints Delgado scored just two goals in only a handful of appearances and since his departure nobody has wanted to take credit for his signing, largely blamed on chairman Rupert Lowe.

However, on the international scene Delgado has always proved his worth.

Last night's strike took his record to 30 goals in 69 internationals and, who could forget, in the last World Cup in 2002 he became the first serving Saints player to ever score in a World Cup finals.

Delgado's game last night was typical of what people in Southampton had come to expect except that he scored.

When the teams lined up for the national anthem he was away with the fairies, staring at the sky.

As the game got under way, Ecuador relied on a hard work ethic, except for Agustin, who seemed to spend most of the first half standing in the centre circle.

He did very little but what he did do was certainly effective.

On 24 minutes a long throw was tossed into the box, Delgado got the flick-on and Carlos Tenorio arrived ahead of his marker and headed across goal and into the far corner to give Ecuador the lead.

In the second half Delgado produced a lovely turn and claimed a penalty that the referee waved away.

But he wasn't to be denied on 80 minutes when he scored the goal that killed the game off. Ecuador broke and Ivan Kaviedes squared for Delgado, known in his homeland as El Tino the Tin Man to tap home.

By that stage former Saints midfielder Kamil Kosowski was on the field but, even with Poland striking the woodwork twice in the closing stages, the result was in the bag for the South Americans.

It seemed written in the stars that Delgado would score again in this his last finals.

But there's probably hardly a Saints fan out there who didn't allow themselves a wry smile when he popped up with his goal.