Buckle vows to sort out Town’s set-piece woes

John Dempster’s free header from a free-kick put the hosts in front as Buckle said: “It was (Lathaniel) Rowe-Turner that didn’t trail and the boy knows. He’s been one of our best in the box and it’s just a free header.

“It’s not good enough, we know it’s not good enough. I’ve had teams where you are watertight from set-plays.

“You’ve got to be if you want to do anything and we’ve got to do that if we want to get out of this league.

“We are going to work really, really hard on the training field and try and sort it out because we had enough height, we had enough defenders.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, what you set out, if someone can just knock a ball into your box like that and have a free header we are going to make life very hard for ourselves.

“We’ve got to change that quickly. But having said all of that I have to congratulate the supporters and my players, because they stuck with it.

“In open play you would have to say that we were OK.

“I know that Tyles (Mark Tyler) has had to pull off a great save to keep it level.

“I’m reasonably pleased in open play with the two centre-halves because the amount of balls forward it’s not easy to defend.

“We’re looking for strength, we’re looking for leaders and I thought Connor (Essam) added to that and Dean (Beckwith) stuck in there as well.

“It’s going to take me a little while to have a real think about the game because we’ve had to work so hard to get the three points again.

“These are not on a bad run, they were a point behind us at the start of the game, you’ve got to be very careful you don’t think you can just come here and steamroller these teams.

“You’ve got to dig in and our fans dug in and stayed with us on a miserable night in their numbers again, so it was a real good team effort.”

Town had dropped Janos Kovacs and Fleetwood to the bench as they started with a more traditional 4-4-2 formation.

On his reasoning, Buckle said: “We went with two banks of four, two bigger lads up front because we didn’t think it was going to be pretty early on and I was right with that.

“Stuart (Fleetwood) dropping out, I didn’t want to play him wide in a 4-4-2, that’s not his position.

“It’s different in a three, but in a four I decided to go with two big boys.

“The plan was to bring him on as the game opened up. We’d spoken to all of the strikers about the changes.

“The last one with Janos (Kovacs), he needs a rest in many ways. I’ve had a private chat with Janos.

“He’s played a lot of football, it’s been non-stop for him for quite a while and giving him a break was the right thing to do.

“The game was always going to be a rugged game, you don’t expect beautiful football on a Tuesday night at Tamworth, you expect a bit of a fight.

“We chose a side and a system that could deal with that and it did in open play. It’s just a set-play, free header, back of the net and we are under pressure.

“It’s about winning. You’ve got to come to these place and win, it doesn’t matter how you do it, by hook or by crook you’ve got to try and win.”

It took until the 58th-minute for Town to make the changes that won them the game on the night and Buckle believes it was a calculated risk.

He added: “I didn’t think it needed major surgery at half time.

“One thing I said to the lads, trying to put a smile on our faces, was at least we’re not three down, at least it’s only the one and that’s the case because the Grimsby game dented us, there’s no doubt about it.

“We got together before the game and said we know we’ve all come together, we’ve come to Luton to try and get out of this league and it’s damn hard.

“I’m not one for gambling. I don’t think you get anywhere from gambling as such and just throwing players forward, it doesn’t work.

“I think it was a calculated risk and one that we had enough balance in (Yaser) Kasim and (JJ) O’Donnell against their two in the middle.

“Fresh legs and a different attack worked as the game had opened up, as once it had, it was the right time to bring them on.

“We are going to have to stay alive on the bench, we are going to have to keep bright and make changes because that’s our job.”

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