City came into this game looking to put behind them successive defeats to Bournemouth and Shrewsbury and although they stopped the rot with a point here, only a late equaliser from Michael Spillane denied them the full share of the points and left them feeling deflated at the final whistle.

The first half was fairly uninspiring with wasteful finishing evident from both teams throughout.

Claude Gnapka should have scored from a header after rising unmarked from a corner but directed his effort wide whilst for City, Omar Daley should have done better after racing onto the end of the delightful Peter Thorne pass, but lost possession inside the box as the ball squirmed through for Hatters 'keeper Conrad Logan.

Mick Harford will also have been cursing Lewis Emanuel for squandering another key chance for the visitors as the former Bantam miscued his shot from down the left side of the area, allowing Rhys Evans an easy pick up.

City hoped they could return to winning ways with Thorne returned to their line up but their eight-goal top scorer twice narrowly failed to get on the end of promising moves, firstly when Daley had crossed from the left after a clever reverse pass from Dean Furman and secondly when Paul McLaren's chipped free-kick into the box had enabled him to beat the offside trap.

Chris Martin tested City stopper Evans with an ambitious rising shot from long range, whilst McLaren should have added another goal to his City tally as the half drew to a close, but fired tamely at Logan from the edge of the area.

In the second half the game picked up and City slowly started to bring their attacking players more into the came. Daley split the Luton defence with a lovely pass for Joe Colbeck but his team-mate couldn't find time to shoot before being quickly closed down. Minutes later City did manage to force a save out of Logan though, with Michael Boulding's back post header from Paul Heckingbottom's cross prompting the on-loan 'keeper to parry wide.

Heckingbottom himself was at the heart of the action as the game wore on, but sadly for City, for the wrong reasons. After taking a heavy touch he was forced into lunging into a challenge with Chris Martin to win back possession, but picked up a second yellow card in the process as City were reduced to ten men.

That incident had come five minutes after Daley had wriggled through the defence and shot directly at Logan but surprisingly, City took the lead after going down to ten men. City boss Stuart McCall turned to the bench for inspiration and was rewarded when sub Barry Conlon fired City ahead, taking advantage of defensive indecision to tap home from close range.

Had the scores remained level Conlon, who was disgracefully jeered before he even touched the ball, would have been the hero, but sadly City failed to hang onto their lead and Spillane thumped in a header from inside the box after Luton had broken quickly and caught City out at the back.

As McCall admitted after the match, although he would have probably settled for a point once Heckingbottom had been dismissed, the result felt as if two points had been lost, rather than one point gained, given the timing of Luton's equaliser.

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