Morris felt Luton wouldn't have come back from Mansfield deficit earlier in the season

Town winger Shayden Morris felt the Hatters wouldn’t have been able to come back from their 2-0 deficit at Mansfield Town earlier in the season, after responding excellently to score twice and earn a 2-2 draw on Saturday.

With 28 minutes gone at the One Call Stadium, the visitors were 2-0 down courtesy of a Jon Russell brace, staring defeat in the face and an end to their slim hopes of making the play-offs. It had echoes of their humiliating reverse at Barnsley back in November, when having conceded twice within 35 minutes, went on to suffer an embarrassing 5-0 loss, but this occasion Luton showed they are made of sterner stuff.

On-loan Hull City midfielder Kasey Palmer reignited their belief just before half time, halving the deficit, and then Morris himself drew Town level just five minutes into the second period. The visitors pushed and pushed to try and triumph, but eventually had to make do with a point, Palmer missing their best chance to win it with 15 minutes remaining, as picked out by Nahki Wells, he was denied by home keeper Liam Roberts.

Although the contest finished all square, Morris felt the comeback he was part of gave further evidence of Luton’s fighting spirit that has seen Jack Wilshere’s team go nine games unbeaten in all competitions, also winning the Vertu Trophy as well, as he said: “That’s the thing as earlier in in the season, two-nil down, we would know mentally that’s the game done for us, but we believed, we kept going and then Kasey’s goal gave us that belief we needed to push on.

"We’re proud to come back and get a point from the game, but we’re just disappointed to go two-nil down. I don’t think we started too well so we’re chasing the game. At the end of the game it just felt like we showed our quality, but we should never be starting the game two-nil down. We don’t want to make excuses, but that feeling of coming away from home, it isn’t always the easiest. It’s important to start really fast away from home, sometimes it just doesn’t go to plan, but then it’s a good thing that we’ve got quality to come back into the game.”

Palmer scoring just before the break, stabbing home from Emilio Lawrence’s left-wing cross, was a big turning point for Morris too. who almost gave his team the lead moments later, sent away on the right by the midfielder, only to be denied by the onrushing Roberts. It was he who then drew the visitors level, taking Palmer’s brilliant crossfield pass on his chest, skipping away from his man and driving into the box, finding the bottom corner via a slight deflection.

Discussing that 10 minutes of action, he continued: “I think Kasey’s goal gave us the belief that we needed. It got us on to the front foot and then I had my chance. Of course I wanted to do better with that, but it just gave us that belief for the second half. Then we got the early second goal and we did feel we could go on and get the win. I think we were the only team in that game trying to get the win, but unfortunately couldn’t get the job done. It was a tight angle so I just put it in there, kind of tried for the bottom corner. It was like a cross-shot, but I’ll take the goal, it was definitely me.”

Boss Jack Wilshere was of a similar opinion to the winger, as he was eager to praise the second half display from his side, saying: “Outstanding, as I thought after their second goal we really dominated. We threatened to do it at the start without actually doing it and we had a few situations where we arrived in their box and maybe made the wrong pass, maybe made the wrong cross, a couple of set-plays that weren’t good enough, but once we figured out the way to attack them where we found Kasey inside, and he turned the game forward, we looked really dangerous.

"We spoke about continuing that at half time, spoke about having belief, spoke about we can create more and more chances and get maybe two or three more goals and the players executed it apart from the last bit. I’m really happy with a lot of things in the first half, but the second half was outstanding. We spoke about now we’re going into our fans as well, and I thought the fans were outstanding again. They did all they could to try and squeeze it in the net as well. We couldn’t quite get it, disappointing, but really happy with creating those opportunities.

Although once Town drew level, they still had 40 minutes left to try and win it, utterly dominating the contest from that moment on, but despite that fact, and the number of chances they created, couldn’t do so, the Stags able to keep them out for a point. Morris added: “That’s the thing in football, sometimes it’s your day and sometimes it’s not.

"We just felt like we were doing the right thing, kept putting pressure on them, but it was just that final quality we were just missing at times. We’ve still got games to go, still got a chance, so we just keep believing, keep doing what we can. We’ve got to watch the other teams, but we’ll control what we can control and hopefully that’s enough come the end of the season.”