Hoskins enjoying 'healthy competition' in battle to be Cobblers' top goalscorer

Hoskins briefly moved out in front as the club's leading marksman when his fizzing low finish on 30 minutes brought Town level following Jack Baldwin's earlier opener.

That took him to eight goals in all competitions but it didn't take rival Williams long to peg him back when rifling home a low volley on the hour-mark, handing Cobblers all three points.

"There's no prize for being top scorer that I know of but it's a healthy competition and I'm happy to be popping up with goals," said Hoskins afterwards.

"But the main thing is always the three points. Whoever scores, I'm just happy as long as we win."

Hoskins added another entry to his impressive collection of well-taken goals at Salford when he met Nicky Adams' excellent pass with a terrific first-time shot into the bottom corner.

"I saw Nicky driving across the pitch with the ball and V made a good run, he took a couple of runners inside which created space for me," described Hoskins.

"The ball was bobbling a bit so I didn't really want to take a touch. I just hit it and thankfully for me and the team, it went in!

"It came at a good time in the game as we had just gone a goal down and we wanted to into half-time at least on level terms because we knew we could turn it around in the second-half."

Turn it around they did as Williams' equally fine strike made it three straight wins to start 2020.

Hoskins continued: "We mentioned before the game what we wanted to do and we went in with a similar gameplan as we had for the Burton game last week.

"It was disappointing to go a goal down the way we did but we're not going to have it easy this season and we'll have tough games and we'll go behind in games.

"It's about how we bounce back and we showed we can do that against Salford and I think we deserved to win the game.

"We came under pressure at the end but you know that's going to happen when you're 2-1 up away from home and Dai (Cornell) made a couple of good saves and Jordan (Turnbull) blocked one.

"Everyone was throwing their bodies on the line for the three points and I think that shows the desire we've got here and in the end we deserved the win."