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Bedford Town 0 Luton Town 3

Two goals inside the opening 13 minutes ended any chance of a notable scalp for the Eagles as they were comfortably beaten 3-0 by Luton Town in their pre-season clash at the New Eyrie.

A decent crowd of 1,133, the majority of which were travelling Hatters fans, will at least help to boost the player kitty for the coming season but that, along with the performances of Andrew Phillips and Craig Daniel were probably the only positives the home fans would have taken away with them.

In what was an unrecognisable line-up, Eagles' supporters would have surely wondered why the likes of Jon Darby, Robbie Miller, Eddie Lawley and Michael Armitt were missing on what was meant to be a high profile match to mark the club's centenary.

The visitors never looked in any danger and seized the initiative right from the off. In the sixth minute, Richard Jackson fed the ball through to the impressive Rossi Jarvis in the box, whose shot on the turn forced a good save out of Michael Kavanagh in the home goal.

And from the resultant Jarvis corner, triallist Michael Malcolm was left completely unmarked and rose to power a header into the net for the opening goal.

Jarvis also had major hand in Luton's second goal, which arrived on 13 minutes. He inserted a low cross from the right hand edge of the penalty area towards the back post, from which striker Sam Parkin gleefully stole in to convert the easy chance from close range.

Eagles striker Phillips nearly scored with an audacious cross-come shot from the right flank in the 20th minute, that would have left Hatters goalkeeper Dean Brill red faced had it been just a few inches lower but, luckily for the Luton stopper, Phillips' effort finished up nestling on the roof of the net

Moments later, Parkin was forced off with a badly cut eyebrow following a clash of heads with Bedford defender Stuart Wall, who was also suffering ill effects from the collision and was substituted shortly afterwards.

Goalkeeper Kavanagh did well to block Jarvis' shot on 35 minutes while, at the other end, Daniel was inches away from finding the top corner with a flashing 30-yard drive that had Brill beaten all ends up but whistled narrowly wide of the angle of post and crossbar.

As expected, both sides made numerous changes at the break, while the second period was devoid of any real goalmouth action, with only the visitors threatening in the final third.

Eagles 'keeper Kavanagh pulled off a smart save to deny the Hatters a third goal on 70 minutes, while Jarvis' speculative effort from long range two minutes later flashed just over the crossbar.

Meanwhile, striker Drewe Broughton, who had come on as a first half substitute to replace Parkin, capped a comfortable afternoon for the visitors by scoring in stoppage time.

Eagles: Michael Kavanagh, Matthew Sockalingum, Paul Dwyer, Stuart Wall, Jason Fox, Colm Kierans, Craig Daniel, Martin Flannigan, Steve Gentle, Andrew Phillips, Michael Boland.
Subs: Ian Tyne, Graham Rush, James Gould, Anish Khinda, David Divine, Michael Boyle-Chong.

Hatters: Dean Brill, Richard Jackson, Lewis Emanuel, Robin Hulbert, Ed Asafu-Adjaye, Ashley Westwood, Rossi Jarvis, Matthew Spring, Sam Parkin, Michael Malcolm, Paul McVeigh.
Subs: Asa Hall, Aaron Fletcher, Stephen O'Leary, Sol Davis, Kevin Watson, Alan Goodall, Drewe Broughton, Nuno Gomes.