Town chief confirms Hatters have been practising penalties ahead of Sunderland clash

Hatters boss Rob Edwards admitted his side have been practising penalties ahead of tomorrow evening’s play-off second leg clash against Sunderland.

With Luton trailing 2-1 to the Black Cats after their loss at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, then the fixture at Kenilworth Road will see one team heading to Wembley to face either Coventry or Middlesbrough later this month, whether that be after 90 minutes, 120, or the dreaded spot-kicks.

Asked if they had been stepping up from 12 yards in the build-up as preparation, then with Town knowing they could find themselves in this situation last month, Edwards said: “Yes, of course, there’s obviously a chance it could go to penalties.

“It would be silly of us not to talk about it, look at it, the process of the whole thing as well, from the final whistle all the way through to the final penalty kick.

“We were probably able to get a bit of a head start on a few of the other teams in this area, so we’ve looked into that over the last couple of weeks.

“We’ve used the youth team, we’ve used our own players, we’ve tried different ways of doing it, and we’ll see.

“If it gets to that point we’ll see, hopefully the work that we’ve done will be relevant.”

With Notts County winning the National League play-off final at Wembley on Saturday, the Magpies changed goalkeeper in extra time, bringing on Archie Mair for Sam Slocombe, the substitute going on to save two spot-kicks.

Town’s number one Ethan Horvath has been beaten by all five penalties he has faced this term, as over his career, he has stopped five out of 28 in total.

Team-mate James Shea has been beaten from 26 of his 29, with January transfer window signing Jack Walton only ever saving one from eight.

On whether he was thinking about doing something similar, Edwards added: “Not at the moment, but I won’t be giving too much away.”