Berry overjoyed to have an impact off the bench as Town midfielder nets late Lions leveller

Town goalscorer Luke Berry was overjoyed to have made a huge impact from the bench as he came on to score the equaliser during last night’s 2-2 draw against Millwall.

The 30-year-old, who has struggled for game time in recent weeks, was introduced for Gabe Osho with 18 minutes remaining and Luton 2-1 behind.

Picked out by Jordan Clark’s low pass, Berry, who had already noticed a chink in the opposition’s armour, didn’t need asking twice to swivel and then unleash a left-footed effort that beat the outstretched hand of George Long and nestled into the bottom corner.

On what his instructions were when taking the field, Berry said: “A few of the lads were saying ‘you’re going to get a goal here,’ and then Rob (Edwards) said, ‘go and make an impact, get a goal,’ and thankfully I did.

“I think there were chances in the game before I was on that we could have taken a shot off, but we took the extra pass, took the extra touch.

"I thought if we get in that position I might as well have a go and luckily it went in.”

Boss Edwards, who also deserves credit for the positive alteration he made, as rather than bring on another defender for Osho, went for the victory, switching to a back four in the closing stages with Alfie Doughty and Fred Onyedinma operating as full backs.

It allowed an extra threat to come on to the pitch in the shape of Berry, as the manager continued: “Brilliant, that’s what he does.

"During the game, you’ve got to get goals on the pitch, unfortunately with Gabe he was just feeling his knee.

"We could have brought Sonny (Bradley) on and kept the shape the same, but we needed to take that gamble and get more goals on and fortunately for us, Bez did what he does really well.”

Berry’s goal that followed on from Elijah Adebayo’s strike, earned Luton a point which was nothing more than they deserved either as they had been the better side for large parts of the game, but somehow found themselves 2-0 behind to an error from Ethan Horvath and a clearly offside second.

Although he had to watch the majority of the contest from the sidelines, the midfielder felt his team were definitely the dominant force, as he added: “It was important for us to get the point, because I thought we played really well.

"We just didn’t take the shots when we needed to, or didn’t take our chances.

"I’ve heard now that the second goal for them was offside, so a bit unfortunate as well.

"Maybe we could have had a penalty too, so at the least we deserved a point.

“I was only on the bench so I was watching, but it seemed like we were on top, looking like the better team.

"It’s funny when you’re 2-0 down and you think, you're miles off it, but we weren’t.”

The fact that Town were in a position to equalise through Berry’s fine effort was thanks to a lovely finish from Adebayo, who audaciously flicked into the net after Cody Drameh’s shot cannoned off the bar to end a run of six games without a goal.

Edwards added: “It was a really good finish.

"At the time everyone seemed to be celebrating as Cody hit the bar, luckily Eli was in the right place in the right time at that moment.

"It’s brilliant for him to get back amongst the goals.”