The Hatters surrendered a two-goal half-time lead as they went down 3-2 at Coventry.

All seemed rosy for the Town at the break as goals from Carlton Morris and Elijah Adebayo put Rob Edwards’ side in control.

However, the lead came against the run of play and the hosts stormed back in the second period to inflict a third straight away defeat on the Hatters.

Unchanged from the 2-1 defeat to Sunderland in the week the Town rode their luck early on with a combination of good defending and profligacy from the hosts keeping the score blank.

But the Hatters got their noses in front from the spot on the quarter-hour mark when Tahith Chong was upended in the box by Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Morris converted the penalty. It was the captain’s eighth successful spot-kick in Luton colours.

Five minutes later it was almost 2-0 when Chong saw a shot on the turn turned away well by Oliver Dovin but in truth the Town were under the cosh as Coventry continued to dominate.

But the Hatters held firm, defending well with a combination of Mark McGuinness, Daiki Hashioka and Tom Holmes preventing the hosts from equalising from close range with the goal at the mercy of the Liam Kitching.

So you can imagine the Town’s delight on 37 minutes when Adebayo struck his second goal in two games to double the lead. Three days on from receiving racist abuse on Instagram the striker took Tom Krauß’s slide-rule pass to clip a left-foot finish beyond Dovin.

Back came Coventry and the Hatters defence were once again in all the right places to thwart the hosts, this time getting in the way of Haji Wright five minutes before the break.

The Town saw out the remainder of the first half and could have led 3-0 if Dovin had not turned away Mark McGuinness’ towering header.

But Coventry began the second half on the front foot. Wright should have done better with a header from close range on 53 minutes before Kaminski got behind a shot from Ben Sheaf two minutes later.

With the Town pinned back, Coventry’s pressure finally paid dividends on the hour when Simms sent a thumping header from a right-wing corner past Kaminski to halve the deficit.

Now with their tails up, the hosts upped the ante further and with 14 minutes left the Sky Blues were level when substitute Victor Torp curled home a beautiful first-time finish past Kaminski from the edge of the box.

The Hatters had barely had a sniff in the second period with Coventry enjoying almost three-quarters of the ball but they had a chance out of nothing to snatch a third with six minutes left. Jacob Brown chased a lost cause to nip in behind the home backline, nodding the ball into the path of fellow substitute Cauley Woodrow. However, the ball bounced up awkwardly and Woodrow could not divert his shot past Dovin.

It would prove to be a crucial moment.

As six additional minutes were indicated by the officials, the Town were then reduced to 10 men when Holmes was shown a second yellow card.

And within a minute of being a man light the Town fell behind in injury time. Ellis Simms’ header from a right-wing cross fell into the path of Wright whose initial header was stopped by Kaminski but the striker was quickest to the loose ball to bundle home and spark celebrations among the home crowd.

Trailing at the death he Town couldn’t conjure an equaliser and that was that.

Town: Kaminski; Moses, Doughty, McGuinness, Holmes, Hashioka; Krauß (sub Walsh 78), Clark, Chong (sub Nakamba 68); Morris (sub Brown 60), Adebayo (sub Woodrow 78).

Subs not used: Krul, Mpanzu, Taylor, Nelson, Johnson.

Attendance: 26,409, including 1,737 shouting for the Hatters