Keeper Lee Burge delighted to be back in action for the Cobblers

The big shot-stopper made a very welcome return to the first team in the 1-0 defeat at Port Vale on Saturday.

It was his first start since the opening day of the season, when he played in the 1-0 defeat at home to Stevenage - although he does admit that was now a mistake.

"It has been frustrating," said Burge, who was out for just under six weeks.

"I actually did my abductor in the warm-up before the Stevenage game, and then played and probably made it worse, but I wanted to play.

"But now I am so happy to be back and I can't wait to get back out there regularly."

While injured, Burge has been able to take his seat in the stands every week to watch his team-mates, and he feels the Cobblers are adapting well to life in the third tier.

But he also feels the squad will get 'better and better' as the season progresses, and they learn from the type of harsh lessons they were taught at Port Vale, who scored an 84th-minute winner to nick all three points.

"If we have lost games, we have only lost by one goal, and the teams we have lost to have been good, established sides," said Burge.

"We are still a young bunch and we are learning all the time, and we are only going to get better as the season goes on.

"We are going to get fitter, get stronger, and we will work and work and work to ensure we do get better and better."

The loss to Vale was a disappointment, but Burge is only looking forwards rather than dwelling on a second loss in a row.

"It was a frustrating afternoon, but it is football," said the former Sunderland and Coventry City man. "You can't get too high and you can't get too low.

"We have done well in other games, but Saturday just wasn't our day.

"We had a good opportunity to score, we missed it, and then they have scored a good goal, he struck it well.

"So it is frustrating but we have to move on quickly and get back to our best.

"We weren't at our best but we still defended really well, I think I had one save to make and that was in the first half.

"Aside from that they didn't really threaten us that much, and we now just have to get on with it.

"We said what we had to say in the dressing room, and we now go into the match against Barnsley looking to get a positive result."

So what did Burge think went wrong against Vale?

"For me it was about intensity," said the 30-year-old.

"They ran over us a bit, they were a bit sharper to second balls and all that sort of stuff, and we couldn't quite get our rhythm.

"But we have to get back on the training pitch, get back to intensity training, and just get straight back into it."