Brady believes there's a reason why his side are often so good at responding to setbacks

Cobblers boss Jon Brady has been delighted with the way his side have responded to setbacks this season, something that was underlined by their excellent performance against Bolton Wanderers on Saturday.

Having succumbed to disappointing defeats to Shrewsbury and Portsmouth last time out, Town were back to their normal selves when they went toe-to-toe with promotion-chasing Wanderers. Only a scrappy set-piece goal 16 minutes from full-time denied them all three points.

"The players have responded well to setbacks and that's important because you will have poor performances over the course of a long season,” said Brady. "You can't be brilliant every single game and there will be dips but I don't think there's ever a lack of application or effort from our players, but sometimes, collectively, you can have off days.

"Even Portsmouth have had a bit of a blip this season so it's fantastic that we are able to bounce back after those blips and now it's about trying to be as consistent as possible.”

Brady says he and his players try to avoid being too down after defeats, adding: "Mentally, what we try and do is learn from those bad days and not see it as a huge negative. It's an opportunity for us to learn and we turn it into a positive and we're always trying to move forward.

"That's all you can do in football. We have a great group here who never set out to play badly. We try to win every single game. There might be times when we're not given much chance against certain opposition but we'll still try to win the game and you saw that on Saturday.

"It was important for us to be on the front foot. I spoke to the players before the game and I said, regardless of the result, I want the players to come in afterwards having represented ourselves and the way we want to play and I felt we did that.”

Previewing tonight’s game against in-form Leyton Orient, who are ninth in League One, Brady added: "You have to say fair play to them, they've done very well recently and have climbed up through the league. We know how hard that challenge will be because they have a lot of pace and power in their team. We saw that back at our place earlier in the season and that was a good battle and over the last few years we've had some great games with them.

"I admire Richie (Wellens) and the way he plays and I think that's reciprocated. We've had some good battles and he's really turned Orient around and they can't be underestimated. We'll be prepared as we can and really try and take the game to them.”