Luton chief was always confident Adebayo and Cornick partnership would produce the goods at Wigan

Town boss Rob Edwards was always fully confident that the striking partnership of Elijah Adebayo and Harry Cornick would produced the goods against Wigan Athletic at the weekend.

With neither Carlton Morris or Cauley Woodrow available due to calf injuries, Edwards went with the duo upfront for the first time since he took over as manager, while it was only the fourth instance the pair have played together this campaign, as they both went on to find the scoresheet at the DW Stadium.

Last term, the Cornick and Adebayo combination began 26 of Luton’s Championship encounters, in target during the same game on four occasions, the last time that had happened back in March 2022, when they netted in a 3-1 win at Hull City.

However, a goal apiece on Saturday saw Luton make it a quickfire double over their struggling opponents with a 2-09 triumph, as Edwards said: “We knew that, we’ve got real good players in that area of the pitch.

"Without Carlton and Cauley today, the two of them have come up with the goods.

"We know that about them, they’re good players.”

On Cornick, who has found it tough to replicate the sort of form that saw him notch a career high 12 goals last term, he is now up to two in his last four outings, both against Wigan, with a first league strike of the season.

It came following some excellent pressing that saw him dispossess defender Steven Caulker and then beat home keeper Ben Amos via a deflection.

Edwards continued: “I’m delighted for him, he’s been brilliant and with a really good assist as well for the second, so his performance was top today.

“We talked a lot about it, we always want to try and press, be aggressive and be on the front foot, but that played into our hands early in the game.

"We talked about maybe more pressing the outside centre backs, but that one was more central, so that’s full credit to the boys.

"Corns did really well and then stayed composed, I thought he was going to go down as he got clipped, but he managed to stay on his feet and finish with a little deflection, so he did great there.

"After that, a little bit of play through the pivot, and we weren’t able to press as effectively second half of the first half, but at the same time we were able to see it out and limit their chances.”

Defender Gabe Osho was elated to see his team-mate hit the net as well, saying: “It’s amazing, Corns is a great lad in and around the training ground, so everyone’s happy for him.

"He deserves everything he gets, honestly, great lad.”

The two then linked up superbly in the second period when Osho collected the ball from Ethan Horvath and sent a searching pass forwards for Adebayo.

His first touch lay-off enabled Cornick to race away, the attacker then picking out the run of his team-mate to finish with aplomb for a third goal in three games.

Edwards added: “It was a great counter attack.

"We talk about speeding the game up and it’s hard to defend against that.

"It was the perfect weight of pass into his path and he just knew, because the pass was right for Corns, it made the finish so much easier, he finished it really well Eli.”