Hoskins reaping his rewards for hard work on the training pitch after his 21st goal of the season

Whilst thrilled to score his 21st goal of the season against Harrogate Town on Saturday, Sam Hoskins was even happier to captain the Cobblers to three precious points and boost their hopes of winning automatic promotion this season.

Town were rocked by Kazeem Olaigbe’s third-minute opener at Sixfields but David Norman quickly levelled and then Hoskins continued his superb season with a fine low finish across goalkeeper Mark Oxley to make it 2-1, followed by Kieron Bowie extending the lead in first-half stoppage-time.

"I do quite like that finish to be honest,” said Hoskins. “We work on it a lot in training, and then we get the third goal and I think Kizz has deserved that because he’s been brilliant since he’s come back into the team.

"Mitch (Pinnock) pressed high, won the ball back and we know what he can do on the ball. It was a great delivery and a great finish and then it was about managing the game.

"It can be difficult when you’re in the lead not to sit back and try and soak up the pressure and they probably had more control and more possession in the second-half but I don’t think they tested us too much and we could have scored more.”

Cobblers could have wilted after falling behind so early but they once again demonstrated their resilience to move to within one victory of promotion. They have now picked up 20 points from losing positions this season, the second most in League Two.

"All games are big at this stage of the season no matter who we are playing against,” Hoskins added. “I actually thought we started quite well even though we were 1-0 down after three or four minutes.

"We should have had a corner but the ref gave a goal-kick and they scored from it and ultimately we have to defend that better, but we stuck to our task and if you are going to go behind, it’s probably a good thing to go behind so early.

"We got ourselves back in the game and went into half-time 3-1 up and I thought we deserved to be 3-1 up. We probably could have added to it in the second-half but a win’s a win and that’s the most important thing.”

Next up is a huge game against promotion rivals Bradford City.

"We go into every game hoping to win and next won’t be any different,” continued Hoskins. “Bradford are going really well and they are a good team so we will work on it during the week and come up with a game plan to win the game.

"We have had 44 games this season and we’ve done everything we can to be in this position and we’ll do everything we can to stay in this position.”