Luton boss never had any doubts about 'ice cool' Collins

Hatters boss Graeme Jones labelled striker James Collins as ‘ice-cool’ after he held his nerve from the penalty spot to rescue Town a crucial point against Stoke City on Saturday.

With the clock ticking into stoppage time, Collins stepped up to try and beat Potters keeper Jack Butland and restore parity against Luton’s relegation rivals.

He had missed his last attempt against Sheffield Wednesday, that coming inside the opening minute, but made no mistake this time, sending Butland to wrong way to make it 1-1.

Jones said: “The courage of the lad, I don’t think anybody at the football club doubts it and he was ice cool, especially after missing his last penalty here against Sheffield Wednesday.

“Ninetieth minute, you’ve got to be experienced, you’ve got to have experienced big moments in order to keep your cool in those situations.”

Collins admitted he hadn’t really felt under any extra pressure when taking the spot-kick and that the recent miss wasn’t playing on his mind at all.

He said: “Not really, I think if you’re going to take penalties, you’ve got to accept that maybe one day you’ll miss.

“I’m fortunate that I got another opportunity to take one and I knew where I was going, so I made sure I concentrated on hitting the target and luckily for me and the lads, it went in.”

This time the striker went low and for the corner, changing up his effort against the Owls, which was hammered over via the crossbar.

Collins continued: “If I’m honest, I didn’t really mean to put my foot through it against Sheffield Wednesday, I didn’t even mean to go down the middle.

“But I got a chance to rectify it and managed to put this one away.

“Luckily for me it didn’t matter too much against Sheffield Wednesday with the result as we still won the game, so if we hadn’t won the game, it would have been worse.”

Meanwhile, Jones revealed the penalty practice he puts on ahead of the game is paying off, as he said: “He learns from his mistakes, we had three penalties yesterday in training which I give them every Friday.

“He has to score a minimum two, obviously you want to score three, but a minimum two as it’s a competition with the goalkeepers.

“He scored two, he missed one, but his second penalty was right through the middle and he’s obviously used that.”

Collins also admitted that Jones’ training ground methods are working well, as he made it 11 goals for the season.

He added: “On a Friday, I always practice my penalties.

“I always pick where I’m going to go and take my three penalties and it’s a competition to see if I can score or the keeper saves it.

“Imo (Imanol Etxeberria, technical goalkeeping coach), he helps me out a lot with the goalkeepers as well, so it’s good job we do it as it paid off.

“I’ve had an inkling where their goalie was going, so I knew which way I was going.”