Micky Adams was full of praise for the contribution of substitute Doug Loft after he inspired a Vale comeback at Darlington last night, but revealed the midfielder won't necessarily be in the starting eleven against Northampton on Saturday.

"We made a poor start to the game. We made a bad defensive error and got punished for it. If you make silly errors in the box at any level, you will get punished, so we were one-nil down and chasing another game.

"In the first half we had a few flashes, but nothing that would worry their goalkeeper and we had to make a couple of changes at the start of the second half to chase the game.

"Midway through the second half we made a third change and Doug Loft was an inspiration when he came on.

"He changed the game with his enthusiasm and his running. He scored a good goal and got everybody going.

"After the goal the confidence began to flow throughout the team and from then on there was only going to be one winner.

"Doug's goal will have done Doug's confidence no harm at all, but he still has to earn his place in the team.

"If you look at the stats, before last night we had only got two points in the bag after going behind in a match - we had never come back from going behind and won, so it was particularly pleasing for us."