Tide turns in Brackley Town's favour ahead of a tough trip

The Saints left it late to secure a 3-0 win over Bradford (Park Avenue) at St James Park with James Armson, Gaz Dean and Northampton Town loanee Max Dyche all on target in the last 20 minutes.

But it proved to be a crucial victory as leaders Gateshead were held to a 1-1 draw at AFC Telford United and third-placed Kidderminster Harriers suffered a surprise 2-1 defeat at bottom side Farsley Celtic.

Another huge weekend now awaits with Brackley heading to fifth-placed Southport while, up in the north-east, Gateshead and Kidderminster lock horns.

Kevin Wilkin’s team will start the weekend four points behind Gateshead with two games in hand with Harriers a further four points adrift.

But the Brackley boss insists he wants his players to focus solely on their “job at hand” as the race for the title begins to heat up.

“We have only ever really focused on what we can do,” Wilkin said.

“We can’t affect what happens elsewhere and all our attention needs to be on trying to pick up three points, which in itself is not going to be easy. They have been on a great run after a slow start to the season.

“So we just have to concentrate on our job at hand and trying to come through that.

“You look at it last weekend and you can say the results were fair to us.

“We picked up a good result and the teams around us didn’t do quite the same so, on that front, it was very good.

“It was a hard-fought match. We should have been in the first half and we hit the crossbar and cleared one off their line ourselves, which was one of those things.

“But we kept pushing and probing, we made a couple of changes which had a good effect and it’s led to us getting a good result.”

Wilkin, meanwhile, admitted the injury woes are now easing for his team while his squad has been boosted by the arrivals of Dyche and striker Jaanai Gordon.

“It has eased a bit,” the Saints boss added.

“I think bringing Max and Jaanai in has helped the situation. But we felt that on Saturday it was one of the strongest benches we have been able to put out.

“It’s an ever-changing picture and hopefully we don’t pick up any needless injuries during the latter stages of the season.

“Keeping all our players out there and available will be key to where we finish.”