Fox's men flop again

by NICK BEER

EXETER City awoke from their FA Cup party with a raging hangover, stained carpets and a kitchen full of dirty glasses. A listless performance against a sprightly and mobile Northampton Town consigned the Grecians to their fifth straight league defeat. With dependable defensive duo Jon Richardson and John Gittens missing through injury, City never matched the extra spring in the Cobblers' step. And despite hanging on manfully for a point, they succumbed to a late winner, controversially engineered by feeble refereeing. After going four straight Third Division fixtures without finding the net, City boss Peter Box stuck with the three-pronged attack pioneered in Saturday's momentous cup triumph over Aldershot. Gary Alexander, Steve Flack and Lee Boylan were entrusted to repeat their mas- terful demolition of the non-league minnows. And City were literally handed a dream start thanks to a moment of madness by Northampton defender Ian Sampson. Exeter goalkeeper Stuart Naylor had already pulled off a point-blank block when wing back Graeme Power swung the ball across from the left flank. Sampson inexplicably flapped at the ball with his hand, the referee paused only briefly before making up his mind and Jason Rees easily out-manoeuvred Alex O'Brien from the spot. Lively Boylan fed Shaun Gale on the right only for his zipping cross to elude Flack at the back post. Although City were worryingly outnumbered in midfield, the alarm bells stayed silent for the rest of a scrappy first half an hour. And then Flack spurned a golden opportunity to double City's lead after being picked out beautifully by Rees. The towering frontman controlled well to leave himself a clear sight of goal with his favoured left foot, but dragged the ball wide of the far stanchion with O'Brien beaten. Visibly buoyed by the let-off, Northampton fashioned two wasted openings for David Savage and Darryl Clare. Clare then contrived to hook over from three yards after City dealt dismally with a John Frain corner. And two minutes later a comedy of defensive errors gifted the visitors the equaliser. Power's misplaced pass was compounded by a slip by Rob Drewhurst to leave a startled Carlo Corazzin in the clear. The former Plymouth marksman kept his head when all about him were losing theirs to rifle past the outstretched Naylor. Clare passed up two presentable chances either side of the interval and an unmarked Sampson failed to find the target from another Frain corner as Northampton continued to dominate. By now Fox had reverted to a more familiar 5-3-2 formation, Kofi Nyamah making up the numbers in midfield at the expense of Boylan. And almost immediately Nyamah released Gale on the right only for both Flack and Buckle to arrive fractionally late at the back post. Naylor fingertipped away a Hendon cross while staring down the barrel of three ad- vancing Cobblers. The City 'keeper was then called upon twice in the space of 11 minutes to deny the classy Clare, each time diving low to push behind goalbound efforts. And the match was decided on 78 minutes after Hendon was upended on the edge of the box. It took referee David Pugh five minutes and two theatrical 10-yard strolls to get the game restarted. Sean Parrish took full advantage of the confusion to rifle through a fragmented wall and past a stationary Naylor. Exeter's response was to pepper the Northampton area in the hope of exposing a jittery O'Reilly. But the clearest chance of the final minutes fell to Savage, the former Eire international mis-controlling embarrassingly after being put clean through by Corazzin.