Pilkington demands side use Wrexham shocker as a learning curve

Hatters were well beaten by their Welsh opponents in midweek, but Pilkington believes they can use the experience to their advantage with the campaign now nearings its conclusion

He said: It wasn’t the result or the performance we were after, but one thing to take out of the night is that it’s a learning curve.

“We’ve come up to the business end of the season and we need to learn from nights like that and make sure it’s still in the back of our memories for when we get tough games like the two cup ties coming up in the next week and more importantly, the play-offs come the end of the season.

“We’ve got to make sure we learn from the disappointment and move on.”

Although manager Gary Brabin has come in for plenty of criticism since the defeat, Pilkington believes the blame should lie squarely at the feet of the players, as he continued: “We can all talk a good game, we should be doing this and should be doing that, but the players have got to take responsibility.

“The manager has asked us to do certain things and I think we let him down and the fans who have travelled.

“A lot was said after the game other than what the manager said. He had a word with all the lads and we all know what’s expected of us and we let the manager down massively.

“Bar their two goals, I can’t think of too many chances they’ve created, so we did contribute to our own downfall and it’s important we rectify that and cut out mistakes in future games.”

Although Wrexham were by no means unbeatable, at times looking very average themselves, Pilkington felt the hosts’ basic approach, coupled with a host of individual errors by Luton, saw Town play right into their hands.

He said: “They play a certain way and play it very well. It makes it hard for a back four when you’re running back towards your goal and always trying to compete for headers.

“They haven’t been conceding many goals all season and have got big men upfront who are good and hard and compete very well.

“They don’t take any chances at the back, I suppose it’s Conference football really. They’ve got good results this season and got some good players who can play as well.

“The first goal took a deflection off a cross, looped up and I turned round and it was in the back of the net.

“Second one, again we contributed to our own downfall. It was a good finish from the lad, but he should never have been in that position to have the shot We’ve only got ourselves to blame.

“There were a lot of disappointing things from the game, we had a good chat afterwards and need to put it right as soon as possible.”

Town have a chance to get back to winning ways once more at York this weekend in their FA Trophy semi-final first leg clash.

The Hatters have yet to win against any of the other top four clubs this season, and haven’t even scored in the four games played, losing twice to Wrexham, once to Fleetwood and suffering a humiliating 3-0 reverse to York.

Pilkington added: “It’s not as if we’re unaware of these stats and bits and bobs, but we know what we need to do and we’ve just got to start doing it.

“It’s not panic stations yet but we’ve got work to do and we’ll look to do that for the weekend.

“We need to forget about Wrexham and concentrate on what we need to do to get our season back on track.

“York away is a stomping ground we haven’t had too much success at so we’ve got to put that right on Saturday.”

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