Luton boss bursting with pride as Town return to winning ways against Preston following Sunday's defeat to a 'disrespectful' QPR

Luton boss Nathan Jones was quick to praise the manner in which his side bounced back from the disappointment of losing to what he felt was a ‘disrespectful’ QPR side on Sunday at the first possible attempt when hammering Preston North End 4-0 at Kenilworth Road last night.

The Hoops had ended Town’s seven game unbeaten home run at the weekend with a 2-1 success, Rob Dickie's controversial late goal allowed to stand despite being offside, leaving the Hatters boss the most crestfallen he has been following a match, barely able to speak to the press afterwards.

However, as they have made a habit of doing this term, Luton’s players didn’t let it affect them, recovering instantly to make it eight wins from matches following a defeat, with two draws, only suffering back-to-back losses on one occasion.

It moved them back up to fifth, leapfrogging Rangers in the process, who lost at Nottingham Forest, as Jones said: “It’s a tough league, you can lose one game and you can then have a real tough game and suddenly you’re on a bit of a slide.

"But we haven’t done that and that’s a credit, as this group doesn’t get down, this group is the most honest, hard-working, under the radar group I’ve even seen and I’m so proud of that.

“I got down (on Sunday), you find motivation.

"They were very disrespectful to us, the way they celebrated, they won a game, but I think they got rattled as they’re QPR and they should be up the top of the league.

"But they came here below Luton Town and how dare Luton Town be above QPR?

"I think that was a bit about it, fair play to them, they beat us, they beat us regularly, they won the battle, but we had to regroup.

"We know we played well, in massive parts of the game we did, we debriefed and got the belief back.

"They’re such a group and they want to bounce back, they want to achieve something because I love working with them and they deserve so, so much credit, they really, really do.

“We’ve had sides come here that are expected to be in and around it and we’ve been more than a match for them.

"Tonight, against a real good Preston side, let’s not forget that, we’ve been excellent and that’s the levels we’ve shown."

Defender Peter Kioso, making his first Championship start since the 2-0 defeat at Sheffield United in January, also knew how important to was to ensure the feeling of defeat was cast aside immediately, as he said: “The boys in there, we know we have a great group in there.

"The gaffer always says about making sure when we lose a game we bounce back straight away.

"In my opinion, I thought the boys' attitude was excellent, from the first minute, we knew what we wanted to do.

"We knew we were going to give Preston a tough game, that’s what we went out there and did.

"Three points is always better than one, especially with the boys we have in there, as it’s such an ambitious group that they always want more.

"Sometimes we’ve drawn games and we're beating ourselves up, we’re thinking 'we should get getting three points,' so every game that we get three points is a bonus.

"As the gaffer always says, it’s about improving the points tally, so even if we're getting draws, as long as it’s not too many, it’s always a positive.”