As he reflected further on Saturday's 2-2 draw with Grimsby Town, Cobblers boss Keith Curle felt his team paid the price for not killing the game off in the first half.
“When you have a team on the ropes you need to finish them off,” he said.
“We put Grimsby on the back foot from the start but we didn’t take full advantage and land the killer punch. We needed to put the ball in the box with more regularity and we didn’t maintain the level of dominance that we had.
“You need to earn the right to win games and sometimes you have to grind it out.
“I spoke to their management team after the game and they said that in the first 15 or 20 minutes they felt they could be in for a long afternoon. If we’d have got the second goal or even scored just before half-time when their keeper made a great save from Andy Williams we could have been back on the front foot.
“When you get a foothold in a game and a team on the back foot you don’t stand off and admire them, you make sure you finish them off.”