Harris relieved as Town triumph at Kenilworth Road

Craig Mackail-Smith’s penalty was enough to defeat Mansfield Town 1-0 and fire to Luton an opening victory on home soil after taking just one point from their previous three games.

Hatters were left hanging on at the end though as Stags piled the pressure on, with Harris saying: “It’s a relief, it was a little bit nervous at the end which is understandable as we’ve conceded four goals in the last minute over a period of time which is something I haven’t experienced in my career.

“So we said to the players, for 60 minutes it was excellent, for the last 30 it was nervous and it will be, but lets hope that 30 minutes gets a bit lower and lower as the games goes on now.

“It’s a nice feeling, because you really, really can’t get across to people how gut-wrenching those last minute goals are and it’s the same for the fans as it is for us.

“We totally understand the fans frustrations, because we know what we’ve got in the squad.

“We have to try and turn the negatives into positives. In our last three games, we’ve beaten Cambridge and the Orient, so stats would say we’ve won three out of four. Maybe we can make it four out of five and then all of a sudden it rolls and it rolls and it rolls.”

Harris was also relieved with a first shut out of the campaign although the defence were indebted to keeper Mark Tyler for a string of excellent saves.

He added: “We’re delighted with the clean sheet as we thought Mark Tyler absolutely superb.

“So were the back four too as Scott Cuthbert came out through his sending off last week and Steve McNulty came in.

“That’s why we’ve got a strong squad and we do a lot of back four work every day. We work our back four, attack our back four sometimes with six, seven or eight players, so I was pleased with the clean sheet.”

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