Delighted Brady hails his players after Cobblers stop the rot with victory at Exeter City

Cobblers boss Jon Brady could not fault anything about his side’s performance after they stopped the rot with an excellent 2-0 victory away at fast-starting Exeter City on Saturday.

The Grecians topped the League One table as recently as last week and they also shocked Premier League Luton in the Carabao Cup in midweek, but they were comprehensively second best against Northampton at St James Park on Saturday.

Sam Hoskins’ fourth goal of the season, created by a fantastic through pass from Shaun McWilliams, was the difference at half-time before Cobblers finally took one of their many chances in the second 45 minutes, Patrick Brough tapping in late on after unselfish work by Kieron Bowie.

"It’s a really good day and I thought it was a very strong performance from the whole group,” said Brady, whose side had lost their previous three league games. “The movement for the first goal was excellent with the way Sam goes through and finishes it off after a brilliant through pass from Shaun.

"I felt we were brave to stay in the shape that we were for as long as we did in the second half. We kept catching them on the counter-attack and to be fair we created quite a few chances. I can’t remember them having one in the second half. They had one in the first half but to reduce them to one shot on target is really pleasing.

"We nullified their threat and that was testament to the work-rate of the boys. We were aggressive on the front line, we did the ugly side well, we won our battles and we won our tackles and we played forward really well. I thought it was an excellent away performance and the whole team contributed. I saw Saints won too so it’s a great day all round!”