Still happy with Town’s progress after Barnet victory

After easing past Hitchin Town 5-0 on Thursday night, Luton came up against a much sterner test in Conference outfit Barnet on Sunday.

Mark Cullen’s strike and Jake Howells’ penalty earned them a battling 2-0 victory in what was a hard-fought game throughout.

Still said: “The Hitchin game was to get us going, but these (Barnet) have had Stevenage here and Peterborough here, so are a little bit further away in terms of games.

“In terms of a tempo game and a competitive game, that’s our first one, which is no disrespect to Hitchin.

“I was really pleased as it was the things we know we need to work on.

“Our touch wasn’t great, but our competitiveness was good, our energy was good, we grew into the game.

“If we’d have had another game before now, our passing might have been crisper and stronger, but having said that, they play rugby here and the grass is long. We want to move it quickly and it wasn’t easy to do that.

“(Mark) Tyler’s made a good save that could have given them a goal, but if I’m being honest, on another day we get couple more goals,

“The penalty goes in, Jim Stevenson made a great run, the keeper’s made a save, but for what I consider to be our first proper game I was quite pleased and everyone’s making the right type of progress.”

The game always had a competitive edge with a few challenges flying in at times, but Still never expected their hosts to be an easy test.

He added: “Course they did (want to beat us), he’s (Martin Allen) my mate.

“They were really up for it, really competitive, which is one of the reasons why we play them. It’s no good if it isn’t going to be competitive game.”

Cullen made it two in two after netting against Hitchin, while striker Alex Wall could have added another goal, but blasted a penalty against the bar.

The boss said: “It was a good finish and a good run by Cully. Alex smashed the crossbar with his effort, but I think that’s the player isn’t it? You know he’s going to smash it and 99 times out of 100 it’s going to go in. That’s all right though. Howellsy was on the next one, took it and scored.”

Still did confirm once again he might look to include another game with both fixtures against Histon and Boreham Wood being cancelled.

He added: “Royal Antwerp I don’t know what to expect, but Colchester and Peterborough, need to be competitive and we’re going to try and get another game.

“I’d liked to have a game or two more, but we’ll rectify that, we’re a little bit behind, so we’re going to see what we can do.”