Brackley's success against Sutton was 'all about mentality'

The Saints kept pushing forward and eventually got their rewards as Connor Hall netted an 84th-minute winner in a 1-0 victory at St James Park.

It was a third win in nine National League matches for Brackley, who have lost just twice since securing promotion.

And Cowan said: "We felt like we deserved the win at Hartlepool last weekend and we wanted to make sure the (goalless) draw we got there looked better because of the result here - and that's what the lads have done.

"We knew this game was all about mentality and you can see the way we managed the game was really impressive.

"We totally deserved to win the game and it didn't quite fall to us before it fell to Connor Hall, and you wouldn't want it to fall to anyone else.

"That will probably kick-start us to be free-flowing in goals because we just needed something to go in.

"I said to him we wouldn't want anyone else to be in there, we visualised him scoring and running off to the crowd, and he managed to do it.

"It was a great set from the skipper (Gareth Dean) to have that composure in the offensive area that he's not used to having and for Connor to finish like that, it was just.

"Sutton were very robust, really well set out, a good team so it was really pleasing to see us win and win convincingly."