Duane has Iron Holmes and dry
A DUANE Holmes brace and effort from Cameron Burgess saw Scunthorpe give the Cobblers a shoeing in the third meeting between these two sides in the space of the last two weeks.
The Iron had knocked the Cobblers out of the FA Cup in a first round replay in midweek, Graham Alexander’s troops winning 1-0, and this time, they delivering something of a shoeing.
Full-back Burgess tapped home his first Scunthorpe goal from Hakeem Adelakun’s low cross to open the scoring just before the hour mark.
Then, almost straight from the restart, Holmes sprung the offside trap and had all the time in the world to lob the ball over Matt Ingram in the home goal.
Holmes grabbed his second and killed the game off 15 minutes from time – again, he raced clean through on goal but opted to round Ingram before sliding the ball into the empty net.
If American Holmes was hoping to take the match ball home, his manager Alexander didn’t give him much chance as he substituted him a minute after his second goal.
“He continues to look for aggressive runs and positions and he’s got two goals from that, so fair play to him,” said the Scunthorpe boss.
“I was delighted with my players. Teams at home always have their spells but we didn’t concede.
“To score three goals away from home and keep a clean sheet makes us delighted – it’s a big three points.
“We committed to everything. Eevery action we made was on the front foot. There was no indecision in what we wanted to do and it was fantastic to watch.”
Northampton failed to score in any of their three recent matches against Scunthorpe, despite a fine 2-1 win away at Oxford just over a week ago.
Manager Jimmy-Floyd Hasslebaink thought that the outcome of this encounter could have been largely different had his troops taken their chances.
“When you’re on top and in our position, you have to score a goal to relieve some pressure,” he said.
“The way we started in the second half was just very disappointing. Don’t get things twisted – I think Scunthorpe is a very good team and they deserve to be up there.
“Every time they gave us trouble, it was because of mistakes from us.
“When you play against these good teams, you cannot make any mistakes.
“The first goal; the decision was not right.
“It was not a free-kick but the referee gave it, so you still have to defend it.”