Curle reflects on a tale of two very different halves for Cobblers after Latics draw

Town, on a run of three straight wins, made a quick start and moved in front courtesy of Matty Warburton's first league goal as he poked in Chris Lines' cross on only six minutes.

Oldham had their moments but Cobblers defended well for the most part and three points looked to have been secured when Andy Williams curled home a fine finish nine minutes from time.

Dramatically, though, Oldham escaped with a point after Scott Wilson squeezed a shot into the bottom corner and then Jonny Smith's last-gasp deflected cross salvaged a draw.

"If you have a look at the overall picture of the game, there were elements of that again pleased me," said Curle afterwards

"I thought we started the game very well, the gameplan worked and we found spaces and we found holes and we scored a goal."

However, although pleased with the first-half, it was a different story for Curle after half-time.

"We should have had another goal on the stroke of half-time but then in the second-half I thought the basics were not in place," he added.

"We didn't land on second balls, we didn't put the ball into good areas and we weren't brave enough to go and move them around with the ball.

"We wanted to go and score the second goal and we got it and the players know what it's like to win a game 2-0 because we've done that three times in the last week.

"But Oldham threw caution to the wind and put five or six people in forward areas and we allowed them to put hopeful balls forward."