Opposition view: Williams thought 'tired' Posh were 'worthy' of Sixfields point

Error-strewn Posh were second best in the first half and fell behind to a Tom Eaves header on the stroke of half-time, but a strong start to the second period was rewarded when Jimmy-Jay Morgan converted from Kyrell Lisbie’s cutback.

The visitors did not kick on from there, however, and it was Northampton who had the better chances to win it with Michael Forbes skying over and Terry Taylor unable to beat Alex Bass when faced one-on-one with the Posh goalkeeper.

"It was a patchy performance," said Williams. "There was some very good stuff and some not so good stuff but I thought we were worthy of a point.

"There was a lot of anxiety around the game with it being a derby and I'm not sure either team dealt with it brilliantly and I think that's quite common for a derby, but it was disappointing to concede so late in the first half.

"We came out really well after half-time and the approach was excellent because we controlled the game, but I thought we looked tired in the second period of the second half and we started to flag and we were really on the back foot for a lot of that.

"I’ve got so much respect for the players because I know how many of them are suffering at the moment and we appreciate the effort and I want them to try and push through and hopefully have an exciting end to the season.

“The second half was on a knife-edge. We lost a lot of territory and there were a couple of errors but we defended the box really well and we looked a threat on the counter-attack and there were a couple of half chances right at the end.

"It wasn’t the type of performance we wanted but this group has got a lot of good character and we showed that again today.”