Jones left to rue Cornick's late miss as Luton are held in six-pointer

Hatters boss Nathan Jones was left to rue Harry Cornick’s inability to score from yet another one-on-one chance as his side were held to a 1-1 draw against Barnsley last night.

The 25-year-old, on after 71 minutes for Danny Hylton, was sent clear by Luke Berry’s threaded pass in the final moments, springing the offside trap as he went clean through.

Bearing down on goal, Cornick could only fire disappointingly straight at onrushing keeper Jack Walton, who then gathered the rebound, echoing his misses against Preston and Bournemouth already this term.

The former Cherries winger is Town’s second top scorer with nine goals and had been the hero last Tuesday, with a wonderful finish into the top corner at Leeds United.

After seeing Reading forward Yakou Meite show how it's done at the weekend, scoring all three of his one-on-ones, Jones knows if Cornick can start converting opportunities like last night, it will take him to the next level, as he said: “If he just adds that then we’ve got some player.

“We know his pace, we were tempted to bring him on earlier because he’s arguably our most potent player.

“When he goes through like that, because he's running one hundred miles an hour, that’s when he needs to just slow and make his mind up and slot it, or go round him, or lift it.

“He just needs something other than hitting the keeper.

“But Harry’s been brilliant for this club all season and he's turned into a fine player.

“We brought him on for that particular thing and it's just a shame we couldn't take the chance.”

Team-mate Berry who had put him through said: “He’s done well this season so you can’t really criticise him there, but it was a good chance.”

Had Cornick taken his opportunity, it would have been just reward for a much-improved second half performance by the Hatters, as although they led through Berry’s goal in the first period, Barnsley had by far the better of proceedings.

Town brought on Andrew Shinnie at the break though and had a far better control of the game, until it became an end-to-end affair in the closing stages once Aapo Halme brought the Tykes level with six minutes to go.

Jones added: “We started really well and then we needed to be a little bit braver in our starting positions, because we gave them too much space and they were able to penetrate a little bit.

“Second half, we changed tactics a little bit and looked extremely solid and I thought we defended excellently.

“We were really tactically aware and I'm just devastated that we didn't take that chance at the end or hold out for the win.”