Rob Edwards has told his Luton players not to feel down about being forced into an FA Cup fourth-round replay at Grimsby after a disappointing 2-2 draw at Kenilworth Road.
The League Two visitors drew first blood with a Gavan Holohan header just before the break, but parity was restored with Gabriel Osho was tripped in the penalty area, earning the Hatters their first spot-kick of the season.
Elijah Adebayo stroked in confidently from 12 yards for his fourth goal in as many games and when Jordan Clark rammed a volley home in the 66th minute it should have set Town up for victory.
But straight from the restart, Luton went to sleep and Harry Clifton poked past Ethan Horvath to level again. From there, the hosts were stifled by a Mariners side that earned themselves a second bite at the cherry at Blundell Park.
“The lads are down in there (changing room,” manager Edwards said, adding: “The beautiful thing about football is that there’s a game just around the corner to pick ourselves up again.
“We’ll be in (training) again tomorrow, we’ll look at it and we’ll learn from it. I’ve said to the lads, ‘I don’t want to see anyone down’. There’s no point in moping about it. It is what it is. It’s happened, but we’re still in the hat.
“It’s not the end of the world. There was some good play today as well and Grimsy gave absolutely everything. We knew it was going to be a difficult game. They went for it and it was a good cup tie.”
Town have only won three times at Kenilworth Road this season and in the last round they had to settle the tie in a replay at Wigan, so it was very much deja vu for Hatters facing another cup trip north.
Edwards said: “We’re doing it the hard way again. Obviously, for the neutral it will be good. For the fans it will be mixed emotions of course. I think they’ll see we gave everything, we really pushed, we were positive. We scored a couple of good goals and the way we won the ball back to win the penalty, I was really pleased with.
“Clicker’s goal was outstanding but a couple of mistakes from the goals that we conceded. It’s something we’ve got to keep working on.
“The second one is especially frustrating because we’d just scored. We’ve got to be like robots. We’ve got to be ice cold in those moments and we’ve got to do our jobs really, really well.
“I said three key things before the game and set-pieces was one of them so the first one was disappointing as well.
“But, that being said, the boys gave everything. We’re still in the hat and we’ve got to go and do that in a couple of weeks’ time.”
Luton will however be in the FA Cup fifth-round draw on Monday, which is to be broadcast live during the One Show on BBC One.
