Brady so pleased as half-time pep talk helps Cobblers march on with fourth straight win

Cobblers boss Jon Brady revealed the half-time message that helped his side register a fourth successive victory at Harrogate Town on Saturday.

Harrogate became the third promotion-chasing team to be beaten by Northampton in the last two weeks as defenders Fraser Horsfall and Jon Guthrie both netted from Mitch Pinnock set-pieces at Wetherby Road.

Horsfall's opener came only seven minutes in but Cobblers struggled for the rest of the first-half and were pegged back by Jack Diamond's super strike.

However, whatever was said at half-time did the trick as the visitors dominated the second-half, deservedly coming away with victory thanks to Guthrie's header.

"It's great to get back-to-back wins, especially on the road against teams near the top," said Brady.

"It's been a tough schedule with the long journeys this week so we have to had to be organised and make sure the players were rested and the training was right.

"I thought we started the game really, really well and we got on the front foot, but as soon as we scored, we stopped doing the things that we asked the players to do.

"That wasn't a normal 4-4-2 today. We played with our wingers inside their shape so it was almost a 4-2-2-2 and we felt that would work for us.

"But what happened in the first-half was that the wide men pushed too high and the spaces were easy for them to counter on us.

"That's why we sat back and were a bit passive, but in the second-half we asked for more calm and quality on the ball and I thought we were so much better.

"We controlled the game and apart from a couple of efforts they had through our own mistakes, I can't remember them having too much on our goal.

"I think they had a shot from 30 yards in the second-half but that was about it. We were marauding forward on the counter-attack and nearly got in on a few occasions.

"I'm really pleased for the boys."