Northampton boss Jon Brady has backed his side to bounce back positively after their push for automatic promotion suffered a blip with a 1-0 defeat at Rochdale.

Tahvon Campbell’s goal after 53 minutes separated the sides but in truth Rochdale were never really threatened after edging ahead.

Brady’s men remain second in the table despite the defeat and the manager insists they will not dwell on a poor performance with so much to play for in their remaining 13 games.

He said: “We have to really be at the top of our game and we have more quality in our team than we showed.

“Unfortunately we never showed any real moments of quality, we never tested their goalkeeper near enough what we should – it wasn’t good enough offensively.

“We’re still in a very good position. We don’t want to be hanging on, we want to drive on and we have no time to get down about this game, we have to dust ourselves down and be ready for Tuesday night’s game against Walsall.

“I think the players are more disappointed with themselves because they have played their way into a hell of an opportunity to achieve something this season where many people didn’t expect us to be where we are right now, still second in the table.

“When you’re there you show fight but you also have to show bravery in terms of showing your quality and there were certain things we didn’t do.

“There’s always fight with this side, I just believe we have a lot more quality than we showed on the day.”

Dale created the better openings in both halves, Jimmy Keohane seeing a shot saved by Liam Roberts in the first 45 minutes and Liam Kelly firing a good opportunity over the bar in the second period.

The winner came when Alex Newby’s cross was fired goalward by Max Clark and Campbell turned the ball past Roberts from close range.

Rochdale boss Robbie Stockdale said: “I’m very pleased with the way we played against a team very high in the division.

“I thought we played well, I loved our control without the ball as well – we had some good moments controlling the game when they had the ball.

“We always looked a threat going the other way and winning the game is really pleasing but I thought it was a performance that was good enough to win it.

“It’s not easy playing when you are little bit short on confidence, the first pass you don’t make you can come in for criticism.

“But we started the game well and the fans got behind that, so it was really important we built on what turns out to be a really good point on Tuesday against Port Vale.

“Now we’ve won this one it’s been a really good week for us with a seven-point return.”