Jon Brady has his say on the eye-catching statistic that shows Cobblers' strength - and their one big weakness

That’s not because their team was being particularly outplayed at the time, and they would go on to have chances to equalise, but for anyone who has paid attention this season, getting back into games after conceding first is not exactly Town’s strong point.

It goes without saying that the first goal in any match at any level is vital but in Cobblers games this season, breaking the deadlock has become disproportionately important, so much so that, more often than not, it essentially decides the outcome.

When they open the scoring, Jon Brady’s team win 80 per cent of their matches, 19 of 24 games – the fifth best record in the division – but when they concede first, they win zero per cent and have drawn only two of 12, the worst record in the division.

So when Hawkins converted Matty Longstaff’s corner on just 21 minutes at Field Mill, chances of victory, or even a draw, dramatically diminished, and so it proved.

Indeed, if not for the heroics of Liam Roberts, who expertly denied Longstaff, Rhys Oates and Lucas Akins, Mansfield would have won by more.

In reply, Town had two good chances before half-time but Jack Sowerby dragged horribly wide and Mitch Pinnock smacked the crossbar. They then struggled to create anything in the second-half, even before Paul Lewis’ silly red card.

Fortunately for the Cobblers, they are generally very good at scoring first. No team in League Two has done it more often this season – 24 of 40 times – and only Port Vale have spent less time trailing.

But when opposing teams do strike first, they tend to sit back and protect their lead and more often than not Town have failed to show the quality, composure or guile to break them down.

Giving his view on it, Brady said: "You could look back at the Coventry game in the cup where we went 1-0 down and won 2-1 and then against the best team in the league – Forest Green – we go 1-0 down and fight until the end and draw 1-1.

"We did the same against Swindon, and against Mansfield, it's fine margins. I know Robbo has made some good saves but with a bit of luck, Mitch's shot hits the underside of the bar and goes in and it's 1-1 and we get a big point away from home.

"They are hugely fine margins. It's great that we don't go down in games too often, I think that's a big positive, but obviously we want to make sure we are better when we do go behind.

"Maybe, from now until the end of the season, that will happen so we want to improve on that. But we don't want to concede early and be fighting to get back into games and that's what we work on first and foremost.

"We have been successful at going ahead in games and staying ahead in games and that's the key. I don't want to focus too much on the negative but I understand the point and of course we want to be better at coming back after we go behind.”