Gills manager Andy Hessenthaler admitted his side played their “get-out-of-jail-free card” as Danny Kedwell’s injury-time penalty secured them a 4-3 win against Northampton.

Jo Kuffour struck a first-half hat-trick to seemingly put the Gills in control at 3-1 at half-time, only for Kelvin Langmead and Saido Berahino – with his second – to get the Cobblers back on level terms.

But Gillingham were awarded a second penalty at the death which Kedwell converted, much to the relief of Hessenthaler.

“It was a game I don’t really want to be involved in again, it was that type of game, especially at home,” he said. “But ultimately it comes down to winning games of football, and sometimes you’ve got to win ugly and sometimes games like that happen.

“Fortunately for us we were the team that ended up winning the game in the last minute.

“I’ve been involved with games where it ends up the other way around and you are on the wrong end.

“It’s our get out of jail free card, you get one a season perhaps and it evens itself out over a season.

“It was a crazy game, too stretched. I think at 2-0 we stopped doing the things that we are good at, in respect to stopping them.

“Bayo (Akinfenwa), who we all know well, I thought he was terrific for them. I think early on before it was 2-0, the balls were going in to him and we had enough bodies around him.

“We got a bit complacent and thought we should go on and get the third and the fourth.

“I know the game looked like it was going to be like that, but that can’t happen because we made it too easy, and it was too stretched.”

Hessenthaler also admitted the Cobblers’ third goal, an excellently worked and taken free-kick that saw Michael Jacobs roll the ball into Saido Berahino to rifle home, had caught his team by surprise.

“The third goal, we talked in the changing room about that play,” he said. “We have teams watched like Gary will and every team does, they may well have done that one during the week because we haven’t seen it in our report.

“But you can’t let players run off you like that.

“It’s a clever free-kick and it is a good finish.

“And then we were on our back foot a bit but I always felt we would score because of our presence upfront. I always thought we would get another goal, but not that late.”

Meanwhile, Northampton manager Gary Johnson believed his side deserved to have taken something from the game:

“We went through every emotion in those 90 minutes,” Johnson said. “There was some great attacking play but some poor defending as well. We took the game to Gillingham in the second half and had some great chances to go and win the game at 3-3.

“Early on we also had four chances before Gillingham had scored, but we were undone by a deflection for their first goal where we didn’t react quickly enough.

“We had enough good play going forward to have won the game. It was our best footballing performance of the season but we didn’t defend well enough and I thought we also struggled to get the rub of the green from the decisions of the officials as well.”

On balance, a draw would have been a fair result as both sides showed their prowess going forward and their inability to defend at times.

From here, Gillingham have a break from league action as they switch their attention to the FA Cup and a trip to Bournemouth next Saturday.