Manager Keith Curle was pleased with Saturday's win at Shrewsbury Town, and he said the 2-1 win shows what he is trying to build within his squad.
The Cobblers started the game with ten professional players unavailable and then lost Benny Ashley-Seal in the first half, but they battled through to record an excellent away victory.
"Saturday showed what we are trying to create and build," said the Cobblers boss.
"It would have been easy for us to hide behind excuses about how many players we had missing but I said to the players that I don't buy in to excuses. We adapted, we changed our shape, we changed our personnel and we got on with our job.
"To be honest, the players got a rollocking from me at half time. Although we were 1-0 up I felt we were not doing well enough and were not competitive enough. We improved in the second half but we know there is more to come from us.
"We want to be competitive in every game we play. Whoever is available and whoever is not, every player in that eighteen on Saturday is employed by and paid by the football club and the very least we expect of each and every one of them is to be competitive and represent the club with pride and commitment whenever they are selected and we did that in parts on Saturday, but I do want us to improve in certain areas.
"One of the pleasing things for me was that Shrewsbury's goal did not rock us. If anything we got stronger after conceding and we could have scored more in the second half and that is really encouraging. That shows the energy levels we have, even after playing five games in 15 days.
"The busy start to the season has not helped our injury list, we will get more robust as the weeks go on and as the matches are played, the busy start has been a challenge, but I think we have handled things reasonably well so far."