Northampton boss Jon Brady admitted he was gutted to concede so late in Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Leyton Orient.
The Cobblers turned the contest around after Rob Hunt’s early goal as Sam Hoskins scored twice in four second-half minutes, but Kieron Bowie then saw red for an apparent headbutt.
Orient utterly dominated the final half-hour but they were made to wait until the 96th minute to snatch a point through Shaq Forde.
“It’s hard to really comprehend,” admitted Brady. “I felt we got ourselves in a good position with 11 players out there.
“We stepped on the gas in the second half and turned it around and find ourselves 2-1 and from there I thought we would go on and win the game and maybe score more goals.
“Even in the first half, I felt we were the team having all of the entries into the final third. Yes, they had a few moments and there was a 10-minute period where they had a spell.
“It’s a disappointing goal to concede but then after that we were in the ascendancy and we pointed out a few technical things that we needed to improve at half-time and we did that.
“It made a big difference and Sam gets his goals, but the sending-off changes the dynamic of the game.
“I didn’t see the incident because I was trying to organise our back line but all I heard was the linesman say there was a coming together and they were sending Kieron off. I’ll have to watch it back.”
Orient dominated the shot count but manager Richie Wellens admitted they ultimately paid the price for a ‘wacky’ five-minute spell.
“We started really poorly and for six or seven minutes we couldn’t get out,” said Wellens. “We gave too many set-pieces away but I thought we dominated the next 25 minutes.
“We scored a great team goal and we were on top and I’d be surprised if their goalkeeper wasn’t man of the match, but we have a mad five minutes.
“Players make mistakes and you have to ride with it but Northampton’s first goal comes from our corner and then it’s a horrible deflection past our goalkeeper.
“We then give away a stupid penalty and within four minutes the game has turned around, but when they went down to 10 men, we totally dominated the game.
“Our decision-making needs to be better in terms of our final pass and our movement. I’m really disappointed because I felt we deserved to win the game but a wacky five minutes has cost us.
“We need to score more goals if we want to get to where we want to be.”
