Brady praises 'courageous' Hoskins for stepping up to the mark

Cobblers boss Jon Brady praised forward Sam Hoskins for having the 'courage' to take Saturday's crucial late penalty against Bristol Rovers.

Hoskins squandered his most recent opportunity from 12 yards when denied by goalkeeper Nik Tzanev with the last kick of the game during Town's 1-0 defeat at AFC Wimbledon.

But he didn't shy away from spot-kick duty on Saturday when Alex Jones was fouled with 13 minutes to play, drilling his penalty down the middle to rescue a point for his team.

"It was courageous from Sam," said Brady. "We talked about it and we went through it after Wimbledon but the first thing he said was 'I will take the next one'.

"You talk to your goalscorers, you talk to Marc (Richards) and I know from playing in teams and that's what you want from your penalty taker - you stick by him.

"Fair play to Sammy for stepping up and scoring and that's what we needed him to do."

Cobblers have now taken 16 points from 15 matches since Brady replaced Keith Curle in early February,

"I've been tasked with the job of trying to keep this club in League One and that's my only motivation," added Town's manager. "It would be selfish if I tried and sit back and enjoyed it. No way.

"I'm not even going to allow myself to sit back and look at myself or anything like that because I'm here and totally motivated to keep this club in League One and do everything I can.

"I'm focussed on tactically how we're going to play, our players and what we can do and just to be better every single day.

"When you're in the moment, you don't have the time to sit back and look at yourself and there's no way we're going to do that right now."