Blackburn boss Tony Mowbray happy to forget about Luton draw

Blackburn boss Tony Mowbray declared his side’s goalless draw against play-off candidates Luton was definitely no “beauty contest”.

Second-placed Rovers, shorn of in-form Chile striker Ben Brereton-Diaz due to international duty and injured on-loan Brighton winger Reda Khadra, never really looked like making it 10 wins from 13 Championship clashes at Kenilworth Road.

Mowbray said: “I said that to the team, we’re disappointed with the performance, but it wasn’t a game for either team.

“It wasn’t a beauty contest, it was about digging in today, and not making the mistakes that would cost you a 1-0 defeat.

“I don’t know how Nathan (Jones) feels, let’s just both take the point, forget about the game.

“I don’t think we’ll be spending too long on breaking it down and looking at why we didn’t do this and why we didn’t do that.

“The first hour was really tough with the weather, the wind was pretty ferocious, swirling out there, both teams were playing one touch just trying to put the team on the defence, and that’s how I see it.

“We had a lot of injuries, Nathan had a lot of injuries, the big centre forward (Elijah Adebayo) didn’t play and the big centre-half (Sonny Bradley), the captain didn’t play.

“He might have been a danger for him late on in the box, if he had the power of those two players and yet if we had our strikers fit it might have made some difference as well, as we had a tough time with our front players today.”

A decent first period saw Luton have the best chances, as they should have taken the lead midway through when a clever free-kick routine led to Kal Naismith missing a presentable opportunity, scuffing wide.

Experienced forward Cameron Jerome then had an even better opening before the break, as found by Fred Onyedinma, he side-footed against the post from seven yards, the ball rebounding into keeper Thomas Kaminski’s gloves.

After the break, opportunities were few and far between, Joe Rankin-Costello’s free-kick turned over by James Shea was the closest Blackburn came, with Bradley Johnson seeing his 20-yarder deflect narrowly wide too.

Luton boss Nathan Jones added: “With the way that the league is and the brutality of the game schedule and what you have to do, sometimes it’s hard to be pure and full of energy and spark.

“These are a tough side to play against, second in the league, but I felt we were at least good value for a point.

“We’ve had the two best chances of the game, Kal Naismith should score, Cameron Jerome should score, and then we’ve had some set-plays there with just a bit of communication we would have had some free headers from point-blank range.

“So we were probably slightly the better side today, but it was a real tight game and playing against Blackburn who have dominated and overrun sides.

“I’m relatively pleased, plus it’s been a 10-point month and the FA Cup win, so it’s been a really good month for us.”