In-form Brackley bidding to maintain momentum against Southport

The Saints have won five successive matches in all competitions, conceding just two goals in the process.

They were 4-1 winners in the FA Cup last Saturday, with that home win against Ramsgate setting up an exciting fourth qualifying round trip to Hartlepool on Saturday, October 12.

And Cowan said: "The league is our priority but the FA Cup is a massive competition and we want to go as far as we can in it.

"The prize money is big for us and the competition is massive for the fans.

"FA Cup days are the best ever.

"As I got back to my office there was a nice free can of Carling with the FA Cup on it so it's brilliant.

"We've won five games in a row and conceded two goals, which helps with the momentum.

"The lads are coming out of the second season syndrome and really hitting the ground running.

"We want to continue it and we've got a big league game at Southport this weekend."

Brackley, who have won four of their nine league matches so far this season, eventually got the better of Ramsgate in the cup clash at St James Park last weekend.

The game was level at 1-1 going into the closing stages, but Scott Pollock put the Saints 2-1 up on 84 minutes before Danny Newton, who had opened the scoring in the first half, and Shane Byrne finished the job.

"All credit to Ramsgate - I thought they were excellent," Cowan said.

"I really respect that they came here to play, they're a good side and they've got a lot of wins under their belt this season.

"For the most part we played the game we wanted to play.

"They had a bit more possession than we thought they would, but I was really pleased with the lads in terms of how they kept their concentration levels and made sure we were difficult to beat.

"We managed to hit them quite hard at the right times.

"Credit to our lads because I've been a player a lot of times on these days and the harder you try, the harder it gets.

"It's a mentality thing and we spoke a lot before the game that we didn't want to take them for granted. We wanted to treat it like a proper league game, and we did that for the most part.

"Credit to our lads for making sure we saw it through to the end.

"We didn't panic, we kept doing what we were doing and the introduction of Shane Byrne and Morgan Roberts gave us that extra energy.”