It was all over an hour after lunch. Glamorgan had lost for the ninth time in 15 second division matches to confirm that they will finish with the wooden spoon and Matthew Maynard knows what his priority will be when he takes over as cricket manager two days after the end of the season.

“I’ve basically started behind the scenes already, but to get involved with the first team would have been very hard halfway through the season,” said Maynard, who teamed up with Duncan Fletcher to lead Glamorgan to the county championship a decade ago.

“The priority is to strengthen the squad. I think it’s quite obvious from the way the team have struggled over the past couple of years. I believe that any side has got to have a good spine and we’re probably three vertebrae short at the moment.

“David Harrison [who missed the season through injury] and Mike Powell [who missed the second half of it with a blood clot in his arm] will be back next year so they will strengthen the batting and the bowling but a couple of top-order batsmen will be the key.”

Maynard is also hoping to hang on to Simon Jones, the England fast bowler, who has lost his central contract after two seasons plagued by injury and is now being courted by Hampshire. “I hope we’re not going to lose him,” Maynard said. “We’ve had very constructive talks and negotiated a package that we feel we can both be happy with, but we don’t want to rush him into a decision.”

As for the team he has been left with, Maynard said: “They work hard, they try hard but when you get into a losing streak it’s very hard to break. The opposition are always 5 per cent up on you before the game starts and those percentages make a lot of difference in the course of a match.”

That was borne out in this game, which was almost a microcosm of Glamorgan’s season. Mark Wallace showed their fighting spirit with a first-innings century and Robert Croft took six for 138 in 53.3 overs, but when they went in again 101 runs behind, they were simply blown away.

David Wigley took three for 13 in his opening spell and Monty Panesar, Jason Brown and Nicky Boje did the rest to leave Northamptonshire needing only two runs to win.

Northamptonshire have released two former England players in Usman Afzaal, the left-handed batsman, who is being linked with Surrey, and Richard Dawson, the off spinner, who has played only two championship matches since arriving from Yorkshire.