Tom Craddock celebrates his goal against Wrexham
Luton Town boss Richard Money boasted Tom Craddock's 36th minute winner would have graced the Premiership, never mind the Blue Square Premier.
Top scorer Craddock's 14th goal of the season was enough to give Hatters another win as they lie just five points off leaders Stevenage who have a game in hand.
“It was a great goal, a top quality finish,” said Money. “He (Craddock) hit them on the counter very quickly, made it one against one – took the defender inside, took him outside and smashed it into the top corner of the net. It's the kind of finish they're drooling over in the Premiership.
“Tom's played pretty much every game since I've been here apart from when we gave him a little break. I said I was I'm looking for one of the strikers to really set fire. I thought his partner (Kevin Gallen) was excellent – as were the players around him.”
Hatters began brightly leading Money to say: “The first half performance is arguably the best since I've been manager.
“Our offence and defence play in the first half was excellent. We created a number of opportunities that Wrexham defended well and a number that we couldn't get on the end of and one or two we possibly should have scored from.
“You don't expect a team of Wrexham's quality to come here and lie down and allow us to dominate for the full 90 minutes. They are always going to have a good spell in the game. We had to defend professionally in the last 20 minutes to make sure we won.
“You hope you can get a second goal but they're a good team. If you look at their goals for and against I think it's something like 33 scored, 34 against which would tell me they've been involved in 32 very tight football matches – apart from when we played them at home.”
The 3-0 defeat at the Racecourse was described by skipper George Pilkington as Luton's worst performance of the season in the matchday programme so a win and a clean sheet pleased the boss – although Andy Fleming's thunderbolt shot in the second half was only kept out by the crossbar.
“We deserved to keep a clean sheet – even under pressure at times in the second half there were no dramas... apart from the lad's long shot.”
The second win in a run of three home games has Luton nicely poised in third place but Money refused to talk about automatic promotion saying: “The only thing we can control is to put some daylight between us and the teams below us as quickly as we can and as much as we can. We can't worry about what's above us – that's out of our control.
“There's been some ups and downs here but four wins out of five here since Christmas so it's turning around a bit now.”
Next up midweek are Kidderminster who were destroyed 5-1 at home by Stevenage in the first leg of the FA Trophy semi-final, but Money insisted that result would have little bearing when the sides meet.
“It'll be a completely different game on Tuesday,” he said. “That's the first defeat for Kidderminster in 13 games so they haven't been doing too badly have they?”
One former Kidderminster player who is unlikely to feature is Matthew Barnes-Homer. The striker, who signed from Harriers in the transfer window was absent from the Wrexham line-up after his father passed away as Money explained.
“His father's lost a battle with cancer. He's on compassionate leave and everyone at the club's thoughts are with him. People should realise his dad's been battling with it for some time and Matthew's kept his council and carried on playing which is full credit to him. Now he needs our support.”