RITCHIE Humphreys and Gordon Watson are ready to rekindle their blossoming Hartlepool United partnership this afternoon.

The two strikers have not played together since the draw with Rochdale on November 30, and manager Chris Turner is convinced they can come back with a bang at Luton today.

When the Hatters visited Victoria Park two weeks ago, Watson missed the 2-1 defeat with hamstring trouble.

The absence of Pool's top-scorer was a major blow to Turner's men, who were unable to convert a number of chances.

Humphreys scored his first goal for the club that day and now his boss insists that both his forwards can go from strength to strength.

"After scoring his first we think he can start to put the ball in the back of the net more often," said Turner. "He has been playing really well, it was just scoring which had been the problem.

"Injuries meant we had to put him out wide against Bristol Rovers last week, but when it got abandoned so early on it could actually have helped.

"Ritchie will be keen to go straight back out and score another and I think we will see that in his performance. You can see both Watson and Humphreys starting to enjoy playing together. Their confidence is growing."

An injury to in-form left-midfielder Paul Smith meant Humphreys was withdrawn into a more defensive role against Rovers.

But after shrugging off a swollen ankle, Smith is now ready to reclaim his place in the Pool starting line-up, leaving Humphreys to revert to his forward position.

And Turner said: "It will be good to have Paul Smith back because we have not had to cope without him at all.

"He is 90-95 per cent fit so he should be OK. There's a strong chance that he will play."

Luton, who are hoping for their first double of the season, have won the last two matches and have climbed to second in the Third Division.

But despite Joe Kinnear's side occupying a lofty position, Turner is treating the match at Kenilworth Road as any other.

"All games are big games," he said. "We have 24 games to go and every one of them will be treated in the same manner.

"Luton are a physical side. And when we played them a fortnight ago I thought we matched them.

"We made two bad errors which cost us two goals. Apart from that we should have at least taken a point.

"They may have had a player (Ian Hillier) sent off, but teams can be just as hard to break down with ten men and they were."

Turner, who has not included Paul Stephenson in today's squad despite playing for the reserves in midweek, believes that Pool can continue to push for a play-off place.

"This is the Christmas period and it's always an important time," said Turner, who will play skipper Michael Barron at right-back today.

"We will go to Luton confident of getting a result.

"We have started to get a few good results and we are looking strong, but we have got to return with points.

"Come January we need to have taken something like nine points from a possible 12.

"First we have Luton then we have important matches with Scunthorpe, Orient and Hull. We know it's a busy time and an important time.

"If we achieve our target then I think we will be nicely placed for the run-in to May."

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