Tom Eaves believes ‘crossed wires’ were to blame for the confusion between himself and Cameron McGeehan before he tucked away the winning penalty in Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Mansfield Town.

Eaves grabbed the ball after Ethan Wheatley was tripped in the box and insisted on stepping up from 12 yards despite Cameron McGeehan being on penalty duties in the absence of regular taker Sam Hoskins, according to manager Kevin Nolan.

Nolan said he was ‘really annoyed’ that Eaves went against the plan but it all ended happily when the 33-year-old striker sent former Northampton goalkeeper Liam Roberts the wrong way and completed an excellent comeback win at Sixfields.

"I actually thought I was on penalties to be honest,” said Eaves. “I spoke to Algs (James Alger, goalkeeping coach) on Tuesday and I said if I’m on the pitch, I’ll take it. There’s obviously been a few crossed wires somewhere but I’ve waited a year and a half to take a penalty for this club.

"You need your number nine to score goals and I’m here to score goals ultimately so if that gets me off the mark and I have to upset someone, so be it, as long as we win the game. I back myself all day to score a penalty.”

On his thought process when stepping up to convert the spot-kick, Eaves explained: "I just waited for the goalkeeper to move. I was actually going to go to the left but I saw his foot placement just shift a little bit as I went to strike it so I opened my foot up at the last minute. It was an anticipation thing and that’s something I’ve been working on.”

It was a deserved and important victory for Nolan’s men following three successive defeats.

"It was an excellent win for us and we fought really hard to get back into it,” Eaves added. “I actually thought their goal came against the run of play but they got a bit of momentum from that and it took the wind out of us, but I’m glad we got back into the game.

"It just shows we can do it against anybody, even when we go a goal down, and I felt we remained quite calm in the second half. It was a matter of doing the basics and sticking with what we work on all week in training and trusting in the process.

"We changed the shape as well and that helped but, as long as there’s a lot of communication, the job specifications stay the same and the fundamentals stay the same. I’m really pleased for Jack Perkins as well because he was excellent and deserved to be man of the match.”

Eaves made a huge difference after coming on at half-time, particularly in how he freed up Wheatley.

He added: "It’d be nice to play more minutes now and play alongside Ethan up top regularly. He’s just a bundle of energy and you can see the quality he has. I’m looking forward to hopefully spending more time with him on the pitch.”