Cobblers boss on Saturday's pre-season game
Aidy Boothroyd said he learnt a lot from Saturday's pre-season friendly at Corby Town.
"We took a lot from the game," he said.
"Whenever you play teams who are geographically close to you and they have players who used to play for you it always adds a bit of a spice to the game.
"They upped their game and that was great, it shows us that if we don’t start properly and we’re not competitive and if we think that teams are just going to roll over and let us do what we want to do, then we are in for a surprise.
"It’s good to play a few British non league friendlies as it wakes you up a little bit. It was about getting minutes for the players and whatever the scoreline, we were always going to make changes. There’s a lot of positives, there are some good individuals, but we need to become a good team and that’s what pre-season is all about.
"You can see that Joe Widdowson is an outstanding left back, we have some very good players that have come in, and now it’s about getting that understand and collectiveness as a team. The players don’t know each other on the field at this stage and that’s where your repetition and training comes in.
"I think we created a lot of chances and there is depth in the team which is good and it looks like we will create a few chances this season. Again, it’s very early days and there is a lot of work to be done.
"Their first goal was a basic mistake from Neal Kitson, it either goes in to row Z or to one of our players, but he will get his timing back and that will come with more games.
"If I said that the conditions didn’t allow us to play our football then I would be making excuses, the pitch was what it was. You have to give credit to a bunch of professionals at Corby and a manager who is a good guy. We knew beforehand that they were going to give us a problem and I think that was the case in the first half particularly.
"We perhaps thought that just because we made a few good signings this summer that Corby were just going to sit back and allow us to play, and we learnt a lesson."