Northampton manager Jon Brady was proud after his team overcame the blow of having three players missing with illness at short notice to win 2-1 against Swindon.

Mitch Pinnock grabbed an 87th-minute winner to extend Town’s winning run to five games, which felt all the sweeter given their illness concerns.

Brady said: “It’s a great result really, the way we set out tactically, they’ve had four shots all game was limited to that. And second half, we got a bit loose in possession but we found a way to win.

“Obviously there were a few headaches this morning when I had some phone calls very early on. (We found out) that Sam Hoskins and Josh Eppiah are ill and Max Dyche was ill on Friday.

“So, you know, again, we’re hugely stretched and our squad’s quite small anyway and then you know we’re just stretched to the absolute limit.

“Foxy [Ben Fox] came on again and scores one and then put a great cross in and Mitch scored. It’s just brilliant from the young man.”

Northampton had an early penalty shout turned down when Louis Appere latched onto a poor backpass and tried to round Sol Brynn, but was stopped by the keeper. The referee waved away claims for a spot-kick.

In the 43rd minute a mix-up at the other end almost let Ronan Darcy score, but he failed to make clean contact with a return pass from Ben Gladwin and the ball bounced clear.

Johnny Williams put the hosts in front after 62 minutes when space opened up in the Northampton back line and he charged through it before slotting beyond Lee Burge.

Northampton were soon level as Pinnock swung in a free-kick which Ben Fox flicked home at the far post for Northampton’s 13th set-piece goal of the season.

Pinnock then went from provider to goalscorer when he made the most of slack marking to arrive at the back post to tap in the winner with three minutes to play.

Swindon head coach Scott Lindsey said: “When you look at the game I don’t think we should have lost that game, but I also don’t think we did enough to win the game.

“There were one or two moments that we have to defend better, but overall we went toe-to-toe against a top side.

“We didn’t defend the far post for the winner, and I don’t know how many more sessions we can do to stop that as we are constantly working on defending those moments and we did not do it well enough again.

“We were playing against the team who are second in the league today and even when we were not at our best, I felt that we were still the best team on the pitch.

“But you can’t defend in moments like that and expect to win games of football.”