Coleman accuses Luton striker Hylton over half time melee

With the players leaving the pitch for the half time break, there was a host of argy-bargy between the two sets of players, with both benches shown yellow cards by referee Chris Sarginson before the second half could get underway.

When asked for his version of events, Coleman said: “He’s (Hylton) possibly a bit fortunate to stay on the pitch after trying to poke our lad in the eye which started the melee.

“He elbowed Nick Anderton, well not really an elbow, he puts his arms in his face, but then he put his fingers in his eyes which is silly, which that sparked the melee at half time.

“They came out in the second half and maybe took advantage of the disruption that happened, we didn’t get going in the second half, they did and they scored two goals.

“I think he’s just picked (on Sarginson’s yellow cards), I don’t see how John Doolan can get a yellow card as he got kicked by one of their players, or one of their coaches, and Jimmy Bell got kicked as well, I think I got a kick as well.

“But it all started on that incident, it wouldn’t have happened if Danny Hylton hadn’t raised his arms on to our left back.

“He’s a good enough player not to do that but he has got a bit of previous as he has done that before.”

With Hylton doing his press duties before Coleman’s accusations were made, so unable to defend himself, when asked about the way in which Accrington players and staff were clearly trying to wind him up throughout the evening, said: “It’s always nice if you’re getting stick, the best way to go and answer that is score a hat-trick.

“They’ve got a long trip home now, so I hope they can think about what they’ve done and it’s going to be a long trip home for them.”

Team-mate Andrew Shinnie, when describing the half time incident, added: “I think their dugout was saying Hylts maybe flung his elbows, but I think they were trying to wind Hylts up, get a reaction, and it all just kicked off.

“It was a big of handbags really, that’s what we were saying, ‘dont let them lure us into a battle, maybe get a man sent off,' but luckily we’ve kept our composure and put them to bed.

"He was quite heated at half time when we came in, but by the start of the second half he was calm and we told him we needed him, 'don’t do anything stupid, we can’t afford a red card and a man down.'

“He knew what he was doing and luckily second half, nothing really kicked off needle-wise, it was more if a footballing game from us and it worked out well.”