He explained to Northampton's official site: "The very nature of pre-season means it has to remain fluid and we need to react to the circumstances that are best for our preparation.
"To play that game would simply have put too much strain on the players who are playing in the matches at this stage.
"We would be taking too much of a chance with the players who have niggling injuries to put them straight in to a game without the chance to build up their work on the training ground in the first part of next week.
"The Scunthorpe and Birmingham games would be too soon for them to play a major part and we don't want to put the same group of players who would play at Scunthorpe through three games in five days."