Burke admits late Terriers winner was the best way to make his comeback from long injury lay-off

Luton defender Reece Burke declared he couldn’t have picked a better way to make his long-awaited comeback from injury by scoring the winner in the New Year’s Day 2-1 victory at Huddersfield Town.

The centre half had been out for just over three months after pulling his hamstring in the 2-0 win at former club Hull City on September 30, also suffering a knee problem while recovering too, before being fit enough to take his place on the bench for the trip to the John Smith’s Stadium.

Replacing Alfie Doughty midway through the second half, Burke then started a move on the right hand side with six minutes to go, that ended with him driving into the box to meet James Bree’s cross and beat Lee Nicholls, the Terriers unable to respond.

On the moment, he said: “If I was to say how I would have wanted it to have gone, that would have been it.

"It's been tough, about three months I’ve not played for now, but great to get back out there and obviously great to have got the win.

"It’s a massive boost of confidence for me and hopefully I can get more game time and hopefully less niggles throughout the season.”

Burke had already opened his account for the campaign with a terrific curling attempt on his left foot during the 2-0 victory over Blackburn back in October.

This time though, he showed all the qualities of a striker to receive Bree’s delivery and pick out the bottom corner for his fourth goal in Luton colours.

Although he received a booking for taking his shirt off to enjoy some quite rightly exuberant celebrations, the defender continued: “If you watch my games I like to do that, I like to get forward and that’s exactly what I did there.

"When I found myself in the box, it was a great ball from Breezer, we all know he’s got quality, and just touch and finish, that's what was on my mind and luckily it went in.

“Every football doesn’t want to be injured and it’s mentally quite hard, but it’s something I need to work on when I score goals, the celebrations.

"But I just felt the need to take it (shirt) off!

"It was a tight game, the boys have been doing well but it was just good to back out there.”