Luton's Under 18's confirmed their place in the next round of the Puma Youth Alliance Cup after seeing off Brighton and Hove Albion 1-0 at Newlands Road.

After 20 minutes Joshua Cranwell ran half the length of the pitch on a through ball before firing home a left-footed shot past the keeper and into the top corner of the net.

It was Cranwell's first goal of the campaign and enough to see Luton home in a tense encounter.

The win means Luton can't be knocked out of the competition as lie second place in Group Three of the Puma Cup table, three points behind Plymouth Argyle.

And with a trip to bottom placed Swansea City this morning, Chris Cummins side will be hopeful of continuing their winning streak, which has now stretched five games.

The game against Brighton saw Luton's youngsters without prolific goal scorer Ryan Charles as the 17 year old striker had been chosen to go away with Kevin Blackwell's first-team squad for their trip to Crewe Alexandra.

Despite a comfortable first half, Cummins wasn't totally happy with the players' performance.

He said: "We played really well first half, looked comfortable and had so much possession.

"But if I had one criticism, it's that we didn't create enough in the final third and lacked a bit of cutting edge up front."

Luton's early lead allowed Cummins to bring on some of his Under-16 players in the second half, with Taylor Nathaniel making his debut for the Under-18's.