Curle sees 'lots of positives' despite defeat to Luton in final friendly

An upbeat Keith Curle was encouraged by what he saw from his side in their final pre-season friendly against Luton Town on Saturday despite losing the game 3-0.

While the final scoreline suggests there was a big difference between the teams, that was not the case for the first hour when Town gave as good as they had against their Championship opponents.

It was not until the usual flurry of substitutions when the visitors eased to victory as Luton's stronger bench told in the end, with Cian Bolger's own goal followed by late strikes from Kazenga Lua-Lua and Martin Cranie.

"First of all, taking the result out of it, what we needed today was to be tested defensively in terms of our shape," said Curle.

"For the first 50 to 55 minutes, I thought we did very well. We had good organisation and good discipline about us.

"It then became a bit disjointed because we made the substitutions and we put different players on and you're trying to put square pegs in round holes to make sure those players get their minutes in.

"The game becomes a bit loose as a result but the early points of the game were very pleasing - we gave a Championship team a very good test.

"I spoke to their manager and their staff after the game and it was a test they wanted as well so it was a good workout and I was very pleased - there were a lot of positives to come out of it.

"Obviously, any game we play, we want to win and we're disappointed with the goals that went against us, but that's something for us to work on."