The Cobblers were frustrated at Sixfields yesterday by a hard working Grimsby Town, playing their first game under new boss Alan Buckley and we must now face a tough replay up at Blundell Park on Tuesday week.
I made an early start from Southampton and got as smooth a run through on the train to Northampton as I would hope to get before heading home for a breakfast. Our pre-match rituals took place in the Carlsberg Bar before the game as we watched a dour Premiership game between Man City and Newcastle that ended goalless. Ha, rubbish that Premiership lark, it was now time for the real football. The FA Cup would surely provide more entertainment than that. Er...actually no, it was even worse.
We simply never got going as Grimsby got what they came for- a replay. Full credit to the visitors for their play and they stopped our front men from ever really testing their back line or keeper. Kirk and McGleish started together and for what must be the 100th time we found out that they don't work together. Jerome Watt provided some sort of spark but when switched to the left seemed out of the game. Usually at this point I would provide a match report but it's difficult to do that when nothing actually happened! It took until around 15 minutes to go for our first real dangerous effort in a scramble that resulted in Kirk and McGleish having shots blocked.
Grimsby passed the ball around well and look dangerous countering late on. In all honesty we couldn't have been aggrieved if the Mariners won the game and if not for the excellent Luke Chambers, Chris Doig and Mark Bunn we could well have been knocked out of the cup.
We now face an extremely tough replay up in Cleethorpes but the one saving grace is that we are at least in the draw for the 2nd Round that takes place at 4:10pm. Full news here when we hear of it!
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