Cobblers!

What can I say? I was half expecting us to lose tonight if I'm honest. We've done so well over the past few weeks that I knew we'd come unstuck at some point. The fact we capitulated in 20 first half minutes against the league's bottom club was a huge shock, particularly to our recently stubborn defence, but the second half revival will certainly offer the players hope. 3 down in less than a quarter of the game left us with it all to do, but a first goal for the club from Craig Stanley and a penalty from Lee Brown brought the Gas back in it. Had it not been for a number of goal-line clearances we could have levelled it, but you probably don't deserve any luck when you defend so sloppily against Northampton.

Woodards picked up knock

Arguably the most concerning news of the evening though came courtesy of an injury sustained by mister consistent Danny Woodards. It appeared to be an ankle injury following a collision with team mate Cian Bolger, but until he's examined further by club doctors nothing will be confirmed. Although he carried on until half-time, the full-back was clearly struggling and it looks unlikely he will be fit to face Torquay at Plainmoor on Saturday. This will be a bitter blow for Mark McGhee as it's clear for all to see that Woody is by far one of the best players in this league, he'll be hoping it's nothing too serious.

Aside from that, McGhee will be concerning himself with the porousness of our defence in the opening 20 minutes of the clash at Sixfields. It was a spell that perfectly reflected our defensive frailties from earlier on this season and Gasheads could have been forgiven for thinking we were on a hiding to nothing. Adebayo Akinfenwa has forever been a thorn in the Rovers side and the, erm, large striker took just 57 seconds to sweep home a Michael Jacobs centre. Less than 10 minutes later he netted a second, assisted again by the lively Jacobs, before loanee Kelvin Langmead headed home to make it 3-0. However, despite the early horror show, McGhee has instilled a positive attitude amongst his charges and the response was terrific.

We didn't score in the remainder of the first 45 minutes but pulled one back after the hour when Craig Stanley sent a right footed effort in to the bottom corner. It was his first for the club and provided a platform for which we could build upon in the rest of the game. Unfortunately we didn't score again until a few minutes from time when substitute Chris Zebroski was felled in the penalty area. Lee Brown confidently stepped up to convert the penalty and ensure a nervy final few seconds for the home side. Patient build-up play in stoppage time proved to be our downfall as we didn't exert enough pressure on the shaky Cobblers back-line and precisely 4 minutes after the regulated 90, the ref signalled for the end of the game.

Gutting. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb and we can't afford to do that against any side in this division, particularly one fighting for their football league status. The best news for us is that we can reply immediately in our big local(ish) derby with Torquay United on Saturday and register 3 points to climb higher up the League Two table. 50 points is the magic number and we're still a little way off that, so going to Torquay and winning the game is massively important. In saying that the Gulls need the points too in order to maintain their promotion push... it's certainly going to be entertaining! But with 1000 Gasheads in the away end and goodness knows how many more in the home areas, we'll be right behind them every kick of the way.

Rest tomorrow before kicking on in training Thursday and Friday. Sounds good to me.

Come on Rovers!