Jon Brady's reaction to Cobblers' friendly victory against St Mirren

Manager Jon Brady was reading nothing into the result after Cobblers opened their pre-season campaign with a 3-1 victory over St Mirren on Tuesday.

Northampton played two different teams in either half at the St Mirren Park Stadium with Louis Appéré’s first-half goal added to by a Danny Hylton brace in the final 15 minutes.

"The result is by the by really,” said Brady. “The most important thing for us was minutes on the pitch for players and gaining those connections all across the team.

"We really mixed the squad up and a lot of youngsters got a run out, including Josh Tomlinson who is a first-year scholar with the youth team, so it was a good run-out and a good evening all round.

"We are starting to do more philosophy work and by doing that, you are drip-feeding information to the players and you’re seeing if they can take that information on-board and retain it. We felt there were some good things during the game but there are also things to work on.

"I don’t read anything into the result. Obviously it’s nice to win and get into a habit of winning but St Mirren themselves mixed their squad up after 60 minutes and that’s when we scored our goals. We were grateful for the opportunity to play them and pleased to get minutes on the pitch and build those connections.”

Cobblers, who play another game in Scotland on Friday before heading home, were up bright and early for a trip down to East Sands Beach in St Andrews on Wednesday morning where they played some football cricket.

Brady added: "We had a brisk walk down at the beach and played a bit of football cricket. It was a bit of fun and we had a good laugh and it’s important for team bonding.

"You can see connections growing off the pitch. We had a very tight group last year and we aim to achieve that again this season and trips like this really help with stuff like that.”