Luton boss Graeme Jones believes his side finally got their rewards in a 1-0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday.
James Collins missed a first-minute penalty but made amends with the only goal of the game midway through the first half to lift the Hatters off the foot of the Sky Bet Championship table.
“What pleased me was that it was the same level of performance we got on Saturday, just tonight we got rewarded,” said Jones. “The level of performance has been there for the last five games.
“I’ve got a group of players that I’m proud of, I love their honesty.
“People have tried to fraction us many, many times and the group’s together and it’s such a powerful tool. I’ve not felt it in a dressing room really since I’ve played and I thought it had gone out of the game.
“Results is one thing, performances is another, and our performances since Birmingham at home, where we learnt our lessons, have been totally acceptable.
“My staff work their backsides off every single day, players work their backsides off, to try and keep the club in the Championship.
“So I’m delighted with the standards, as that’s all I spoke about in the dressing room, but can we learn our lessons.
“Can we take our chances when they come along? We took one, but one’s enough, we didn’t get one on Saturday.
“Then can we manage the game better when we’re under pressure? And we did.”
After the break the Owls had opportunities of their own, with Town goalkeeper Simon Sluga saving from Kadeem Harris, while Julian Borner put a free header wide and Atdhe Nuhiu sliced off target in stoppage-time.
Defeat means the Owls have now gone five league games without a victory and boss Garry Monk said: “We need to get ourselves out of this run that we’re in.
“We haven’t managed to do that but we can’t keep talking about and saying it, we train hard, we try and set them up and then hope everything goes well.
“We have to deliver it on a match day and we haven’t delivered it to the levels that we’ve shown already this season.
“So for some reasons, whether that’s a lack of belief or confidence levels, but we have to fight through that.
“I have to fight myself and I’m trying to help the players fight back from that as we can’t keep on doing this in the run of games we’ve had.
“Little errors and schoolboy errors that cost us goals and then giving yourself an even bigger mountain to climb and come back from.”
