Battling Cobblers come back again

Bury 2-2 Northampton Town
League Two
Saturday, October 20th 2009

The Cobblers completed their third comeback of the week to secure a hard fought draw at Bury this afternoon. Following the recovery against Bradford from two goals down last weekend and the 2-1 reversal against Bournemouth in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy on Tuesday we once again came back from a two goal deficit at Gigg Lane.

It was once again Courtney Herbert who took the game by the scruff of the neck to turn it around with the first strike of the comeback trail but even before that he was causing his usual problems. In the thirteenth minute the 20-year-old took the ball down and shot just wide of the post to signal his intent.

But it was Bury that had the best of the first half and deservedly took the lead and it was a Cobblers corner that led to it. The home side cleared their lines and David Worrall broke to have a shot blocked by John Curtis before tucking home the rebound past Chris Dunn.

It was to get worse just a couple of minutes later as we were suddenly 2-0 down as Ryan Lowe latched onto a hoof up field to lob the ball home and we were once again facing an uphill struggle, this time away from home though.

The half time team talk had to match the one from the last couple of games and the players’ character shone through once again in the second half. The game could well have been tucked away early on though as Chris McCready had to clear off the line.
But then it was time for another fight back. Herbert sprang into life and took the ball past three or four men before finishing well past Wayne Brown in the Bury goal. Suddenly we were right back in it and a substitution turned the game again. Adebayo Akinfenwa had been brought on before Herbert’s goal in the place of Steve Guinan and it was the big man that equalised with fifteen minutes left.

Akinfenwa got himself on the end of a Luke Guttridge cross and his header eluded Brown and flew in off the far post. Unlike last weekend, there was still time to even win it!

Bury had a couple of good chances to take the lead again but Chriss Dunn made a good double save before Akinfenwa headed over the bar from a corner in the last action of the game.

It was another show of real character from the Cobblers and a decent away point at the end of it. The league table isn’t exactly being eaten into but the next three games are critical with Lincoln, Morcambe and Torquay up next.