Luton chief rues 'uncharacteristic' defensive errors as Town are frustrated by Mariners

Luton boss Rob Edwards was left to rue his side’s ‘uncharacteristic’ defending as they were held to a 2-2 draw by League Two Grimsby Town in their FA Cup fourth round clash at Kenilworth Road on Saturday.

The Hatters had trailed 1-0 at the break after Gavan Holohan wasn’t picked up, heading the visitors into the lead, but responded well as Elijah Adebayo’s penalty and Jordan Clark put Town in front just after the hour mark.

Within 60 seconds, the Mariners levelled though, Town switching off at the back, Dan Potts caught out, as Harry Clifton went through to beat Ethan Horvath and make it 2-2.

It means the two sides will have to do it all over against Blundell Park in a weeks time, as Edwards said: “I actually missed the goal, I was talking to one of the players, talking about making a change at that moment, so I missed it.

"I had to watch it back when I got in, really disappointing.

"We don’t win the first ball, or the second ball, the third, and in those moments, it’s like a set-piece, we’ve got to be like robots.

"We’ve got to do those basics really well, as they’re going to latch on to anything like that and they did.

"We’ve got to learn from that, which we will do.

“There wasn’t loads wrong, I was pleased with elements of the performance, we were trying to do the right things, we were in the ascendancy no doubt about that, but just a couple of areas we needed to try and focus on, be better at.

"I won’t go into loads of detail now as we’ve got to play them again, but I thought we adjusted well, got the two goals, really disappointed then with how we reacted after scoring that second goal.

"It’s not like us, it’s uncharacteristic of us to switch off.

"Credit to them, but we’ve got to do better in that moment.

It was similar to the first goal as after Ethan Horvath had tipped over Holohan’s terrific 30-yard dipping volley, Town didn’t go with their runners from the resulting set-piece, despite being given clear instructions from the management ahead of the tie.

Edwards continued: “That was one of the key things, the theme of the week and the final messages before the game, it's an area they’re going to look to try to capitalise and they certainly did.

"It was a little bit of a strange kick from the goalkeeper in the first place, the build-up, really good volley and a good save from Ethan.

"We didn’t get the first contact from the set-piece which is a big strength of theirs and we had to do it a difficult way then and come from behind.”

The Luton chief had signalled his intentions to go through at the first attempt by picking a strong side to take on a Mariners team some 57 places below them in the football pyramid, making just two changes from the XI that on 2-0 at Wigan Athletic the previous weekend.

Although the Mariners ran the clock down in the closing stages, Town had the opportunities to win it, Carlton Morris’s downward headed turned away by keeper Max Crocombe, who also smothered Luke Berry’s fierce volley too.

Asked if he felt the officials should have spend things up earlier, Crocombe booked in the 90th minute for timewasting, Edwards said: “There were lots of moments like that, that’s what they’re going to do.

"It’s a big game for them, and they’re going to try and take as much time as possible.

"There was a lot of cramp going on wasn’t there, a lot of gamesmanship, but we’ve got to be able to deal with that.

"We did create some good moments, I thought the keeper made a couple of great saves, from Carlton, from Bez, so we tried, we got into dangerous areas, we made positive substitutions, we really tried to go for it and be on the front foot.

"That leaves you a little bit open sometimes to a counter attack or a direct bit of play, or a set-piece, but overall, the lads couldn’t have given anymore, we’ve just got to be tighter in certain moments.

"We respect first of all the competition, second of all the opposition, we knew how difficult today was going to be, we were under no illusions of that and we tried, we gave it everything, and we wanted to win the game.”

Despite the result adding an extra game to Luton’s already congested January, Edwards was eager to look on the bright side, adding: “We seem to do it the hard way in the FA Cup at the moment.

“We’ve done it once in the third round, we’re going to have to go and do it again now in the fourth.

“We’re not too down about this as all right we switched off a couple of times and got punished, that can happen, but we’re still in the hat.

"We’ve gone three games unbeaten since narrowly losing to West Brom, so a couple of wins and a draw, we’ve got to look at is as a positive.

"I saw lots of good things, saw loads of desire as well as quality, it wasn’t as if the lads weren’t trying, or they weren’t up for it, or they weren’t committed, I saw all of that.

"I know we’ll see it again when we play again in the replay.”