Scoring goals never gets old for history-making Sam Hoskins

Hitting 10 goals in League One for the first time in his career marked a significant achievement for Sam Hoskins against Cambridge United on Saturday – but he’s not done there: continue at the current pace and he’ll soar beyond the 20-mark for the second year in a row.

Town’s talismanic frontman brought up 10 goals in just his 17th league appearance of the season when sweeping home Patrick Brough’s low cross via the post early in the second half at Sixfields, helping send Cobblers on their way to a morale-boosting victory.

"It was a great move and thankfully I could finish it off,” said Hoskins, who becomes the first Cobblers player to reach double figures in League One since first-team coach Marc Richards managed it in 2016/17. “I probably should have scored one or two more but to come away with three points was nothing more than we deserved.

"It's nice to get on the score sheet and help the team. I work with Marc a lot and we do finishing practice in training and it's nice to have him here to give me little tips and pointers here and there. It's great to get to 10 goals because I've not done that before in League One but more than anything it's nice to come away with three points.”

Hoskins is now up to 85 goals in 357 appearances, making him the eighth highest scorer in the club’s history.

"It's something I'm proud of,” he added. “I've said it before but I didn't think when I first signed for the club eight years ago that I would be stood here have played so many games and scored so many goals.

"It's great to still be here and to be scoring goals and helping the team win games of football. It was another strong performance and great result and it's something to reward the fans because they push us on when we need them."

Hoskins added to Kieron Bowie’s opener five minutes earlier as Cobblers backed up their win over Burton with another much-needed victory at Sixfields.

"We knew we needed to back up our performance and win against Burton a couple of weeks ago and I thought we did that,” continued Hoskins. "We had to dig in a bit at the end but sometimes, when teams go down to 10 men and they're chasing the game, it can be quite difficult, but we stood up to the test and I felt we deserved all three points in the end."We could have put the game to bed earlier but games never go exactly how you want them to and we've been in that position before where we get punished for not taking our chances. But full credit to the lads, everyone dug deep and we deserved to win the game.”