Encouraged Austin sees his plan coming together after '˜positive' St Albans performance

Town flew out of the traps against their Conference South counterparts in Saturday’s contest, led by the outstanding Daniel Powell who scored twice in a dominant first 12 minutes from the visitors.

The former MK Dons man had several opportunities to complete his hat-trick, denied by the home goalkeeper’s legs and also firing over when well-placed, while Sam Hoskins and new signing Andy Williams also had clear chances in the first-half.

Cobblers changed their entire team for the second period and though their dominance waned a little, a couple of neat finishes from Billy Waters wrapped up a convincing victory and made it two wins from two pre-season games following Tuesday’s victory at Sileby Rangers.

“There are a lot of positives to take from the game,” said Austin afterwards. “There’s obviously a long way to go but we’re making steady progress and I was relatively pleased with the performance.

“Some of the things we did, especially in the first-half, pleased me in terms of some of the moves we put together and the things we’re working on in training and how we’re trying to play.

“The most pleasing thing as a coach is when you see how hard the boys are working in training and then you see it come off in the games.

“I’m under no illusions that we’re not going to have things all our own way in the league we’re going into but we have a plan and a way of how we want to do it and that’s very pleasing.”