Kovacs happy to put one over on old team-mate Newton

Happy Hungarian Janos Kovacs was glad to put one over on former team-mate Adam Newton as Luton beat Woking 3-1 at Kenilworth Road on Boxing Day, writes Mark Wood.

The pair had previously played together and Kovacs enjoyed catching up as well as claiming the bragging rights.

He said: “It’s always nice to have a little chat with someone who was your team-mate back in the day.

“He is a fantastic lad, a top professional, and I’m happy he wasn’t happy at the end.”

Newton, who helped Woking to win the Blue Square Bet South last season, was pleased with the reception he got on his return to Kenilworth Road, if not with the scoreline.

He said: “I had quite a few nice little hellos from the crowd and a few laughs and stuff. I thought I was going to get hammered to be fair.

“It’s good to see a few old faces and a few people behind the scenes and that.

“It’s always a pleasure coming back to Kenilworth Toad and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

“It’s always good to see the old boys like JJ (O’Donnell) and Tyles (Mark Tyler).

“I’m surprised Tyles is still going! But he’s always been a fit lad. Janos as well and Scott Rens as well.

“It’s good to see a few old faces and look forward to seeing them on Tuesday.”

The Cards right-back had hoped they could nick a result, but a poor first half performance left them with a mountain to climb.

He said: “We always knew it was going to be tough. Luton are always going to be strong.

“We came here and just tried to give a good account of ourselves.

“Not underestimating ourselves, but we could have nicked a result and we’d have been happy.

“We felt we gave away the two goals. It was a mistake for the second goal and obviously Janos lost his marker for the first one.

“We got rightly punished for it and we were happy to go in with just 2-0 down, get to half time and regroup.

“I thought we gave a good account of ourselves in the second half. Showed good spirit to fight back.

“I thought we had a good spell and then obviously they got a penalty that gave them a little break and made it a little bit easier for them.

“The longer the second half went on I think the lads grew a bit more in confidence and caused the Luton defence a few problems and stuff.

“I think when the management changed it, it added a little bit more to our game.

“We started to go a little bit more direct and had to big ‘uns up there to hold the ball up for us.

“Like I said, we gave it a go but obviously ran out of steam at the end.”

And Newton’s hoping his side might be able to shock the Hatters in the return fixture on New Year’s Day.

He added: “We would like to think so. It’s on our own patch there and we will be the home team and we are proud of playing at the Kingfield and hopefully reverse the result today.”

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