Watford youth coach Dave Hughes feels his Under-18 side suffered from a false sense of security after taking an early lead in the 2-2 derby draw against Luton Town yesterday.

The young Hornets caught their opponents cold as Alex Jakubiak opened the scoring but the Hatters fought back and goals either side of half-time from Daryl Ngwala and Osamu Allman gave the visitors the lead.

With ten minutes remaining, Jabukiak headed in his second from Josh Doherty's cross to ensure the bragging rights were shared but Hughes was disappointed with Watford's first-half display.

"I think when you score early it should be a real positive, but it lulled us into a sense of security," Hughes told the club website after the match.

“Potentially, the lads then expected to go on and win by two or three."

He added: “You can’t expect things to happen, you have to make them happen. We didn’t do that in the first-half with our decision making. We were reactive, instead of proactive."

The Hornets boss was however pleased with the character his team showed to rescue a draw and believes the Golden Boys could have gone on and won the game.

“Credit has to be given to the group of players, who rolled their sleeves up at 2-1 down to get an equaliser," he said. "I genuinely thought at that point we would go on and win the game.

“I thought our second half performance, certainly for the last 20 or 30 minutes, was very, very good.

“The lads are disappointed that they didn’t win the game, but to come from 2-1 down to draw 2-2 shows great character.”