Relief for Brady as Cobblers overcome disrupted preparation to beat Barrow

Cobblers boss Jon Brady felt his side's excellent 2-0 win at Barrow on Saturday was reward for some recent good performances as his side bounced back after successive defeats.

Town did not play especially badly against Salford and Stockport but lost both games and needed to bounce back with a clutch of teams hunting them down in the final automatic promotion place.

And bounce back they did courtesy of a strong second-half showing at Holker Street where Ben Fox and Shaun McWilliams secured a seventh away win of the season.

Cobblers were without five players due to injury and they also had a disrupted week of preparation due to the weather, which showed in a scrappy first-half against Barrow.

"I felt we were a little bit rusty in the first-half and that was because we haven't had a game in two weeks and we've hardly been able to get onto the grass until Thursday,” said Brady.

"We had to get through a lot of hours on astro but we needed to do that and the boys needed to do some running.

"We spoke to the players at half-time about playing the simple pass because I thought we tried to force a lot in the first-half, but in the second the boys were a lot more confident and a lot more purposeful.

"It was a professional second-half in how we played and it's great that we showed we can do it because overall I feel we have played quite well recently but just haven't got the rub of the green.

"That's been really tough to take because you don't want to send the fans home unhappy with how good they have been for us, but sometimes results don't tell the full story so I'm just very pleased for the group today to get that win.”