Carlisle victory feels extra special as Curle hails 'superb' response from Cobblers

Keith Curle oversaw his side's biggest home win of the season on Saturday. Picture: Kirsty Edmonds

Town ripped up the formbook with a terrific second-half display at the PTS as they brought Carlisle's six-game winning run to a shuddering halt while also ending their own mini-rut.

An entertaining and evenly-matched first-half ended goalless but Jack Bridge starred in the second, netting either side of the hour-mark before teeing up Junior Morias for a points-sealing third goal.

"It meant a lot to me personally because the job I had at Carlisle was important to me, but this is the next chapter of my career and I'm employed by Northampton and I can assure you it means a lot," said Curle, who spent nearly four years at Brunton Park.

“Throughout the week I left no doubt in the players' mind as to how important this game was to me personally and the response I got from them was superb."

Carlisle would have been fancied by many to take all three points on Saturday given the two sides' recent respective form, but their promotion hopes suffered a setback as Town delivered perhaps their best display of the whole season.

"Carlisle had one or two chances but as the game grew I thought we caused them a lot of problems," added Curle.

"They were on fine form and had six straight six wins coming here but it was important that our focus was about what's in the building for us and our roles, jobs and responsibilities and ultimately performances.

"You've got to say we ticked a lot of boxes. There was hard work, discipline, understanding, willingness, desire and application all in abundance.

"We had to weather a storm at times when they had the better of it and we needed to reshuffle. We've only worked a day and a half on roles and responsibilities so sometimes we were going to be caught.

"There was 15 or 20 minutes in the first-half where we got out distances wrong and we weren't having people in the right areas to cause them problems and they were able to pick us off, but as the game went on and as we grew, I thought we caused them a lot of problems - we could have had a few more as well."