On-loan Tottenham attacker urges Town to 'bring it' at Boro

​New Luton signing Jamie Donley has urged his side to ‘bring it’ when they head to Stevenage this evening.

The 21-year-old has witnessed the good and definitely not so good during his brief time at Kenilworth Road already, thrown in for his first start just after joining on loan from Spurs for the rest of the season late last month, that being the 5-2 defeat at Mansfield Town in which he was taken off after an hour with the visitors having just conceded their fifth.

He then kept his place for a 2-0 success over Stockport County on Wednesday evening, remaining in the Hatters XI when his former side Leyton Orient visited at the weekend. Donley was able to enjoy a personal milestone on Saturday, netting his first Town goal to put the hosts 1-0 ahead, but despite a dominant performance by Jack Wilshere’s men, it wasn’t enough to claim all three points, Jaze Kabia with a first half leveller to ensure the spoils were shared.

Donley and the rest of his team-mates now have to go again tonight when they travel to Hertfordshire, in what is the final game of an exhausting schedule, to take on a Boro side who had no scoring issues of their own last time out, thrashing Barnsley 5-1 at Oakwell, as the Northern Ireland international said: “The first game wasn't the way I or everyone wanted it to be. We bounced back really well against Stockport, that was a good team performance. We stuck together and probably we performed better than we did on Wednesday, but we have to bring it Thursday.

"Stevenage away is a really hard game, the way they play, so hopefully we can have another good performance. It's a schedule, but we're professional athletes, it’s our job to do whatever. We play or train, we have got a bit of a longer rest than we had in the last week, so hopefully we’ll recover well and go again.”

Like most, Donley was surprised to see that Town are heading to the SPORTA Arena with just a point to their name following a game against the O’s in which they had 23 shots at goal, but could only net once, the on-loan midfielder’s low shot beating Nathan Baxter at his near post and hitting the net.

Nahki Wells might have had a hat-trick, while Hakeem Odoffin hit the post and Gideon Kodua saw his close-range attempt blocked, with Donley volleying wide and then also denied by a covering defender twice once Wells’ shot was parried by visiting keeper Nathan Baxter. Discussing the contest, the Northern Ireland international continued: “I'm delighted to score. I was aiming to go across the goal and it deflected and went in, but it was nice to score against your former club, and nice to get off the mark for Luton.

"The performance was there, the gaffer said we all knew we should have won the game and I had chances, we had quite a few chances that we probably should have put away. I should have scored a couple more and we should have got the win.

"The one when Nahki went through and it came to me, I probably should have taken it around the defender as he was sprinting out to me, but even the chance after that when it came back to me, I probably should have done better, but we move on. I didn’t think they caused us many problems, we are all disappointed, but it's a good performance in the right direction.”