Manager Jon Brady was pleased with a tough workout against a strong Brackley Town side in the Cobblers' third pre-season match.
"It was a strong Brackley side, they made us work hard," Brady said. "It was a good run out, it was still a bit disjointed in places but the most important thing is were feeding the injured players back in and we are getting more bodies on the grass.
"We have been meticulous in our planning process and bit by bit we are putting minutes in to those players coming back. We won’t push them too hard too soon but it is really pleasing to be getting some of those boys back.
"Our organisation out of possession was okay today, in possession we can be a lot better though. There is still two weeks to go but there area a lot more things for us to build on. We still have Kidderminster and MK Dons to come before the league starts and we will be putting those building blocks in place.
"We are looking at stepping up our levels now, we have players coming back and we are getting a lot more minutes in to some others, they are starting to hit 75 and 90 minutes.
"People talk about the teams in League One, I don’t care about that, I don’t care who we play or what stadiums we play in, we are Northampton Town, we want to go there and be competitive and win games of football and make sure we are a real pain to a lot of teams in that league."