Sheehan insists Town proved they can be a League One hit

Although leaving the south coast empty-handed, Luton deserved so much more from the game, hitting the woodwork in either half.

Speaking about the campaign ahead, Sheehan said: “If we play like that every game of the season, there’s not going to be a problem, we’re going to wipe the floor with some teams I believe.

“Unfortunately these first days of the season, they’re weird games as there’s so much build up, a huge crowd, but we’re just so proud that we got the ball down and we played our game.

“It turned into our game in the end, but unfortunately they won the game and that’s the bottom line.”

The only goal of the game came after Sheehan slipped when in pursuit of Ronan Curtis, who then rounded Matty Pearson and crossed for Jamal Lowe to find the net.

On his part, Sheehan said: “They’ve had one clear-cut chance and they’ve taken it.

“It was from a mistake in the defence, I slipped, the guy got in and pulled it back.

“It’s the one clear-cut chance and we’ve had about five or six, so it just shows they were clinical.

“Apart from that I don’t really remember them having a chance, I thought we defended really well as a whole and we played some excellent football.

“I’m not going to sit here and make excuses, I think my boot split or something like that, but look, I’ve got to deal with it better.

“The ball’s coming, these things happen and you get on with it, unfortunately that cost us the goal.”

Sheehan was almost the man to bring Town on level terms, his free kick from the right flank desperately unfortunate to hit the inside of the post and bounce out.

He said: “I thought so (that it was in), but look, it didn’t go in. We can sit here and cry over spilt milk all day, but unfortunately we didn’t get the win.

“The good thing is, there’s no medals handed out in August. It’s the first game, we won’t have as many away ties as difficult as this.

“We came and think we put on a really good show without actually scoring a goal.

“We’ve carved them open a few times, on the flip side, they’ve not really carved us open all day.

“From some excellent play through the midfield the boys have had chances, we’ve hit the woodwork a few times and the keeper pulled off a few good saves.

“Unfortunately it didn’t go in, but these things even themselves out.

“When you come to a packed house like this and defend and be solid, it says a lot that our keeper’s not had a save to make in 90 minutes.”

At one point it had looked like Sheehan’s afternoon was in danger of ending early when he went up for an aerial challenge with Curtis, only for the Pompey man to stay down.

Despite it looking like no contact was made, home players and supporters alike were baying for a red, until referee Gavin Ward deemed there was nothing wrong.

On the incident, Sheehan said: “I’ve gone up for a header and your man’s gone down and then you’ve got certain players for them running around the ref.

“You play against those guys for years, some of them and you know what they’re like, they’d like nothing more than us to go down to 10 men.

“They tried to influence it, but referee was strong and linesman’s seen it.

“There was nothing in it really, it’s just the way some of these players are.”