Scrappy equaliser a 'good sign' for the Hatters

After Jordan Cook was injured on 34 minutes, Jones brought on target man Ollie Palmer, with Hatters taking a more direct approach to find their on-loan striker whenever possible.

It played a huge part in the first goal, when Alan Sheehan’s free kick caused havoc inside the area and Danny Hylton stabbed in from close range.

Although there had been a little confusion as to whether Town’s top scorer or Palmer had got the final touch, Jones said: “It’s Hylts’ goal. Danny said it was his and I would have loved Ollie to have scored and got his first goal, but if he wasn’t going to score, then I’m delighted for Danny, as he was nowhere near his performance levels today, but he dug deep, kept in it, and was a constant menace.

“We have a different threat now, a little bit more height, little bit more presence about us.

“Because sides have been doing that early on in the season and getting results.

“There’s been some sides who have been relying heavily on set plays and so on, and we didn’t score any, we had to score a good goal.

“Now we can score scrappy ones and that’s a good sign for us, because we still try and score very good goals and beautiful goals, but if we need to mix it then we’ve proved we can.”

Hylton’s second after a fine piece of skill and cross from Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu drew plenty of praise from Jones too, especially as it was something they had been practicing during training.

He continued: “The second goal was a lovely finish from a great bit of play from Pelly.

“It’s the area for me that he’s in. It’s pleasing for me as he doesn’t score enough from crosses Danny and that’s been the thing, we’ve needed to work on getting him into certain areas where the ball’s going to land.

“It did for him for the second goal and we’re absolutely delighted because they defended stoutly.

“They’re not a bad side, they started fantastically well and after they’ve gone 1-0 up you start to think is it going to be one of those days again, but we showed bags and bags of character so I’m pleased with that.”

To make matters even better for Jones, he saw his side leapfrog Exeter into fourth place, and with Carlisle losing, cut the gap to third to just three points ahead of a home game with Hartlepool on Tuesday night.

Jones added: “We can’t do anything about anyone else and everyone’s going to be playing each other, sooner or later.

“It’s those games that you have to keep picking up points in and we have to keep picking up points all the time.

“Because it’s so tight, people are on good form, good runs and we’ve just been consistently inconsistent all year as we haven’t put a run of five, six, seven wins together yet.

“Others have done that and that’s pushed them into where they are. Whereas we’re consistently picking up wins, two or three on the trot and then we lose the game, so if we can eradicate that then we can really, really have a good push.”