WESTLEY RINGS BORO CHANGES
STEVENAGE boss Graham Westley defended his decision to make sweeping changes during their defeat at Luton.
With his team already assured of a play-off berth, the Boro chief swapped eight players for the match that started with Luton harbouring slim hopes of reaching the top seven themselves.
He said:“It was always going to be a difficult afternoon in the sense we were sixth whatever happened but we wanted to go into the play-offs with winning momentum.
“I wanted to make sure that the lads who went out on the field of play gave us the best chance of winning the football match and I felt players who perhaps had a lot more to gain were right to wear the shirt.
“When you make as many changes as we did, you can get that lack of fluency in your play and that lack of organisation, we saw that in patches.
“But as the afternoon wore on, we got ourselves back on top of the game so there were some encouraging signs even if we didn’t go into the play-offs with the result we wanted.”
Needing an unlikely eight-goal swing, Luton got off to the perfect start when Elliot Lee’s shot was parried by Chris Day, allowing top scorer Mark Cullen to sweep the rebound into the empty net.
Steve McNulty fizzed one over from distance, while Jake Howells had a header deflected behind, but the visitors started to look more assured.
Jonathan Smith came close with a low effort that was easy for Day, while Luton then had a second on the stroke of half-time as full-back Michael Harriman sent a superb half volley into the top corner with his left foot.
In the second period, Cullen should have had a second, somehow volleying Lee’s cross wide from close range.
Cameron McGeehan then opted to control Howells’ searching delivery rather than hit it first time as Howells and Lee then both sent efforts wide.
Cullen was denied by the legs of Day and Lee should have done better than shoot tamely at the keeper, but with Plymouth winning 2-0 at Shrewsbury, the Hatters knew their efforts were going to be meaningless. It was Stevenage who came on stronger towards the end too, Jack Jebb shooting straight at Elliot Justham, who then saved from sub Calvin Zola.
Town’s keeper had to be alert to get his fingertips to Zola’s lob after Luke Wilkinson’s back header fell short, with Harriman completing the clearance.
Hatters chief John Still added:“I was really pleased, I thought we approached the game in the right way. Before the game when you say ‘if we do this and they don’t’, but all we said was all we can do is go and play the game and how it will be is how it will be.
“We started on fire and throughout the game we had the ascendancy. We knew the other result was 2-0, so we just played the game and I was delighted.”