Curle pleased with a point but knows Cobblers must improve after 'naive' mistakes

Cobblers boss Keith Curle had mixed emotions after his side opened the new League One season with a 2-2 home draw against AFC Wimbledon.

Town's first game back in the third tier could hardly have started any worse when Ethan Chislett capitalised on Cian Bolger's error to slot Wimbledon ahead on 21 seconds.

The hosts responded well, though, as Matty Warburton and Ricky Korboa, on his league debut, struck either side of Nesta Guiness-Walker's well-worked goal to ensure the Cobblers put their first point on the board.

Whilst Curle was encouraged by elements of his side's performance, he also knows they must improve at the back where the new-look defence struggled.

"The start to the game was obviously not what we wanted," said Curle. "But I thought we settled down well and showed good character.

"There's aspects of the game that we're disappointed with because they didn't break us down, we were just a little bit naive in our decision-making and that's something we have to work on and will work on.

"But again the character to come back was excellent and we created some good opportunities and there's still more to come from us.

"There were a few key, defining moments in the game where we just needed that little bit of quality to make the right decision going into their final third.

"We could have caused them more problems and some of our decision-making on set-pieces needs to be better and we need to identify where their weaknesses are and where our strengths are.

"But these are all things we work on and there's nothing better than putting them into a game situation and then looking at it back and showing players where they can improve."