Keith Curle admitted that beating his old club Carlisle United was a big personal achievement.

The former Blues boss enjoyed a happy reunion with the club he left in May after nearly four years in charge.

Curle, along with coaches Colin West and Dan Watson, celebrated Northampton’s 3-0 win on Saturday.

The ex-Brunton Park chief said: “It meant a lot to me personally because the job I had at Carlisle was important to me, but this is the next chapter of my career and I’m employed by Northampton and I can assure you it means a lot.

“Throughout the week I left no doubt in the players mind as to how important this game was to me personally and the response I got from them was superb.

“Hard work, discipline, understanding, desire and application were there in abundance and there was a real unity.

“Carlisle had one or two chances but as the game grew I thought we caused them a lot of problems.”

Their victory sent the Cobblers up to 16th while the Cumbrians dropped to sixth.

United are now two points outside the automatic promotion places after Saturday’s reverse. They next host Cheltenham.