Mark Hughes felt the Cobblers success at Oldham on Saturday was deserved, but admitted they had to work hard for the 1-0 victory.

"We really dug in on Saturday and I think we deserved the win," he said.

"We've got some good players here and there is no reason why we shouldn't be challenging in this league.

"We've done well at home but we know that we need to be harder to beat away from home and hopefully Saturday's result will be a bit of a turning point for us away from home.

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"The lads are really confident at the moment and it was a great three points for us on Saturday.

"First off you have got to win your home games but its pointless winning at home if you're just going to get beaten away.

"We've let a couple of leads slip away from home this season but on Saturday I think as a team we really did a job, everyone dug in together and it was a good result.

"I don't mind whether I play in a three or a two at the back really, I'm just happy to be playing.

"It was good to have Chris Doig back on Saturday, he leads by example and he's a great captain. He's a good player to look upto and it's good to have him around.

"We knew that the Oldham front two were going to be pretty lively but I think we dealt with them pretty effectively. I'm always learning and it's great to test yourself against different types of players all the time.

"The Oldham game has gone now and our focus is totally on Southend on Saturday.

"We've got two home games in a row now and who knows if we can get a couple of good results we could push into the top six.

"We need to keep doing what we've been doing and if we do that we know that we can challenge the top teams in this league.

"We've got Darlington away in the cup and that'll be a difficult game because they are going well in their league.

"No cup game is easy but we will go there full of confidence, we might have to dig in again like we did at Oldham but if we do that and play some football as well hopefully we'll get through to the second round."

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