Cameron McGeehan played through fractured ribs after emergency call-up against Luton Town

The 30-year-old midfielder sustained the injury against Port Vale earlier in the month and subsequently missed three games before returning to the bench for Luton’s visit to Sixfields over the weekend – at least that was the plan.

However, Kevin Nolan was forced into an 11th-hour rethink when Dean Campbell went down with an injury in the warm-up. McGeehan answered his manager's call and stepped in to play the full 90 minutes despite being far from 100 per cent.

"I fractured two of my ribs in the game against Port Vale,” revealed McGeehan after the 1-0 defeat. “But they have settled down really well and it was good to get back involved after missing a couple of games. I felt fine on the pitch and hopefully I can kick on from here and I’ll be back helping the lads every week now because we have a lot of injuries and we need everyone available as soon as possible.”

Nolan added: "We had planned it and done all the work but had to change it before kick-off. Cam McGeehan was obviously meant to start on the bench but came in and did fantastically well. It's credit to him and his professionalism to go out there and play 90 minutes and play a number of different positions. He was here, there and everywhere.”

McGeehan went close a couple of times, particularly when his free-kick was well saved by Josh Keeley, but Cobblers were beaten 1-0.

"It was disappointing,” he admitted. “We just didn’t quite have it today. It was a poor goal to concede from our point of view. We nearly got back into it at the end but it was a frustrating day.

"We have the FA Cup this weekend and it’s a big one for us because we’ve had two poor results after a good win last Saturday and we want to bounce back. Hopefully we can go to Oldham and produce a good performance, go back to doing what we do and get ourselves into the next round.”