Hoskins knows Bristol Rovers trip will have an 'extra edge' for Cobblers fans

Sam Hoskins celebrates his second goal for the Cobblers against Leyton Orient, a strike that took up to 10th place in the club's all-time scorers' list. Hoskins now has 83 Town goals to his name (Photo by Pete Norton/Getty Images)

But Hoskins insists the Town players will not be motivated by revenge when they head to the Memorial Stadium.

The two teams meet for the first time since events on the final day of the 2021/22 season when Rovers dramatically denied Cobblers promotion by just a single goal after they put seven past already relegated Scunthorpe United.

Town eventually followed the Gas into League One 12 months later, and on Saturday they head to Bristol with their sights set on what would be a sweet victory.

But Hoskins, who will lead Town out in the likely absence of Jon Guthrie, insists it’s not about revenge.

"I think for a lot of fans Saturday will probably have that extra edge to it and when the fixtures came out they would have been looking for this one,” said Hoskins.

"But for us as players, we just treat it as another game.

"We need to focus properly and prepare like it's any other game and we go into every game believing we can win it.

"We always look at the opposition's weaknesses that we feel we can exploit and how we can impose our strengths on them, and it's no different on Saturday.

"It would be lovely to go and get three points of course but we don't want to overhype it because it's just another game that we want to win.

"A lot of players weren't here when they beat us to promotion so I think it'll just be the usual pre-match team talk.

"The focus is on winning the game and that's what we'll try to do.”

Ten-man Cobblers were cruelly denied victory by a stoppage-time equaliser against Leyton Orient on Tuesday, but manager Jon Brady felt there were lots of positives.

"There's a lot we can take from the match,” Brady said. “Orient have invested heavily this season and they want to really push on in League One but we went toe-to-toe with them.

"I know it's hypothetical but I feel if we had kept 11 men on the pitch, we had the momentum and we would have kicked on, but you can see the togetherness, the work-rate and the energy of the team.”

Rovers will go into the clash with the Cobblers without a manager after Joey Barton was sacked on Thursday.

Andy Mangan will lead the team in a caretaker capacity, supported by Glenn Whelan, Danny Ventre and Anssi Jaakkola.