A RIVALRY with Luton Town has been blown out of proportion, according to Accrington Stanley manager John Coleman.

Hatters fans have held a grudge against the Reds for their celebrations in securing a late win at Kenilworth Road last season, which helped towards Stanley beating their promotion rivals to the League Two title.

There were fiery scenes in the re-match at Luton on Tuesday night, when players and management from both sides were at loggerheads at the half-time whistle.

But Coleman insists there is no bad blood between the two teams, despite the half-time fracas.

“There’s five seconds to go before the half-time whistle,” said the Stanley boss, explaining the incident and the build-up to it.

“A long throw-in goes up the line, Danny Hylton puts his arm in our left back’s face, not once but twice, in front of the fourth official, which is disappointing. He could nip it in the bud by getting something done about it, he doesn’t, our players react to it, our bench react to it and then it’s all handbags at 10 paces then pushing and shoving each other, but not really aggressive.

“That can be diffused quickly if the officials do their job, which they didn’t. I go back to last year when Danny Hylton elbowed Janoi Donacien in front of the linesman and got away with it.

“They can play near the knuckle and if you get away with it you’ll get away with it and you’ll keep doing it.

“I suppose it’s good to have aggressive strikers who can unsettle opponents. But you’ve got to play by the rules.

“But then for whatever reason it’s deemed that we’re the antagonists, we’re the ones who caused this problem.

“Don’t forget it was 1-1 at half-time, we weren’t losing so it’s not as if we’re in an angry situation or we’re spitting our dummy out of the pram. The fact is it’s 1-1, we’re very much in the game, so we’ve got no reason to cause that. We’ve caused that as a direct result of somebody putting his arm in our player’s face twice.

“And it’s a shame that people think about that coming out of the game, that that’s a lasting memory, when it was a smashing game of football and that’s what that night should be remembered for.”

Coleman added: “We should be talking about the game of football between two good teams. I think the players respect each other, certainly the management do, we had a good hour in their office after the game so there’s no animosity amongst us, and there’s certainly no animosity from towards Luton. I love going there, it’s a great atmosphere and a proper football club and I enjoy the battles.

“If people want to try to blow things up to be something different that’s up to them, but as far as I’m concerned it was a great game of football that unfortunately we didn’t get what we wanted out of it, which was a win, but we’re not too downbeat about our performance.”