Championship side MK Dons travelled to Sixfields Stadium hoping to avoid a cup upset at the hands of League Two promotion hopefuls Northampton Town, but only managed to come away with a 2-2 draw.

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Northampton Town second in League Two almost pulled off the cup upset, they fell behind in the first half to a Richard Cresswell home goal, to go into half time trailing the Championship side.

After the break Ricky Holmes drew the home side level and then nine minutes later he put Northampton into the lead, only to have a cup victory snatched away by MK Dons forward, Nicky Maynard eight minutes from time.

Overall MK Dons were a bit lucky not to have been beaten at the hands of Northampton, but both sides live to fight another day and will be in the draw for the fourth round.

Here are THREE things we learned from the 2-2 draw between Northampton Town and MK Dons.......

1). Ricky Holmes is a welcome return

Ricky is just returning from injury just in time to help Northampton with the League Two run in, and showed his class with two well taken goals.

Holmes has scored four goals in just nine games this season, the 28-year-old midfielder has missed a large part of the first half of the season and is raring to get going.

Although Northampton have got to second in the table, Holmes showed everyone what they have missed with his absence.

2). Nicky Maynard saves the day

MK Dons brought on Nicky Maynard, an hour into the third round tie with Northampton Town, trailing 2-1, looking beaten, not playing at all well.

On comes Maynard to save the day, it took around fifteen minutes before MK Dons started really playing well and looked as though they could salvage something from the game.

The Dons started playing and moving the ball with tempo and purpose and with just eight minutes remaining, Maynard prods in a Equaliser to force a replay.

3) Marc Richards has an impact with out scoring.

Leading scorer for Town may not have gotten on to the scoresheet, but his presence unsettled the MK Dons defence, which in turn created space for his team mates.

Richards linked up, play nicely and possible could have improved his goal tally but none the less he had an impact on the game, every time the ball came near him two MK players closed him down, and a simple touch took them out of the game.

This was repeated numerous times throughout the afternoon, but then again the player oozes class and has been deadly so far this season.

MK Dons and Northampton Town fans have your say......what do you think the out come of the replay will be? Who are you hoping for in the next round? Leave your comments below!