Tisdale on Northampton win: “John’s goal was a sublime finish”
Exeter City travelled to Sixfields to take on Northampton Town in a League 2 fixture. The Grecians 
had not beaten the Cobblers on the road since 1973.
The line ups were:-
| Northampton Town 1 | Exeter City 2 | |
| 01 Duke | 01 Krysiak | |
| 02 Amankwaah | 03 Woodman | |
| 03 Widdowson | 04 Bennett | |
| 06 Collins | 05 Baldwin | |
| 23 Heath | 06 Coles | |
| 04 Carter | 07 Sercombe | |
| 10 O’Donovan | 08 Oakley | |
| 11 Hackett | 22 Keohane | |
| 17 Deegan | 10 Gow | |
| 09 Platt | 11 Davies | |
| 25 Blyth | 25 Parkin | |
| Substitutes | Substitutes | |
| 21 McNamara | 30 Pym | |
| 12 Tozer on for Amankwaah on 79′ | 15 Moore-Taylor | |
| 08 Morris | 14 Doherty | |
| 19 Emerton on for O’Donovan 79′ | 16 Dawson | |
| 26 Harriott on for Carter 68′ | 32 Wheeler on for Keohane 82′ | |
| 16 Hooper | 18 Reid | |
| 24 Toney | 19 O’Flynn on for Gow 73′ | |
| Scorers | ||
| Blyth 7′ | Bennett 35′ and O’Flynn ’90 | |
| Bookings: | ||
| Carter and Deegan | Woodman | |
| Ref: Lewis Att: 4036 of which 258 were travelling Grecians |
| NTFC | ECFC | |
| Possession | 51 | 49 |
| Shots | 17 | 7 |
| on Target | 5 | 2 |
| Corners | 6 | 3 |
| Fouls | 18 | 10 |
A poor start for the Grecians. Conceding after only 7 minutes. Exeter struggled in the first quarter of the game to exert any authority, and the midfield did nothing to help the defence by holding on to the ball. Gradually Exeter 
got themselves back in the game, even though Northampton always looked dangerous on their breaks. But Exeter were able to go in at half time level at 1-1 after Bennett scored from a Woodman corner.
Second half Exeter were more in the game, but Northampton looked the side most likely to score. However, an inspired pair of substitutions of O’Flynn and then Wheeler meant that at the death Exeter scored the winner and stole all 3 points from a Northampton side that had probably played its best game of the season. Very sweet for the 258 Grecians present.
Krysiak was good in goal, not at fault for their goal. The defence struggled at times against Northampton, but Bennett and Woodman had a good game. The midfield took a long time to play their part. Davies, Oakley and Keohane did well, Sercs was his usual self. Gow was disappointing, and did work well with Parkin who himself had an excellent game, and could have scored towards the end.
Official Club Report: http://www.exetercityfc.co.uk/fixtures-results/match-report/
90 seconds of the Official ECFC You Tube highlights. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w47zVCYjCv4&feature=youtu.be&a
Paul Tisdale speaking after the game said:-
It’s one thing keeping going, but we kept going with intensity and sharpness with our counter-attacks and breaks. I’m very proud of them. We deserved the opportunity for that to happen. Northampton also put enough into their game to have the opportunity to win it – we both deserved the opportunity, and it went our day today.
It’s early days and I’m not getting carried away with it, but I have to say that Northampton
are the best side we’ve played this season so far. It’s a cruel world and I don’t think they deserved that today off the back of how they played – they didn’t deserve to lose.
I don’t think we had any reticence at all in the way we prepared ourselves in the dressing room. We knew what it would be like, but we just didn’t cope with it. I don’t think I could label our team hesitant or slow to start – Northampton were phenomenal. Their start was so dynamic and it blew the game their way.
Today was about us keeping it at one goal and not letting it become two – like when we were here last year [when Northampton won 3-0) it is easy to let one to become two, to become three – we stuck with it and we gave ourselves a chance for late in the game. I’m beginning to see a team with more
resolve.
I don’t think it can be argued that it was a terrific delivery with a very purposeful run into the box. Sometimes a perfect run and a perfect run will beat any team, and that was nigh on a perfect cross from Craig Woodman.
The one thing we didn’t quite do enough was play the ball behind their back-four; eventually we did it twice in the last five minutes and got our rewards from it.
John’s goal was a sublime finish, and it was made by the passes of Arron Davies and David Wheeler.
We’ve probably won more games this season from being behind than we did for the whole of
last year. We had a competitive edge to us today and I think we have done this season so far.
Exeter’s David Wheeler on the goal:-
The Northampton boss, Aidy Boothroyd said:-
We will play a lot, lot worse than that and win games. The simple fact is that Exeter were clinical and we weren’t but you look at our overall performance and there were a lot of positives.
We probably had five or six times the chances that Exeter had but you have got to take those chances. I’m pleased with a lot of things and there were some good performances out there today both individually and collectively.We created lots of chances but at the moment it doesn’t seem to matter what we do, we’re not getting what we deserve. We just have to keep working hard and keep persevering, I’m convinced we are at a tipping point in our development now and we’re definitely not too far away.We conceded a goal that we shouldn’t have conceded right at the end of the game but really we should have been out of sight by that point.
