Luton looked confident coming to Deepdale, slightly above North End in mid-table and with three wins out of the last five.

And they had the first effort, Elijah Adebayo's deflected shot from the edge of the area skewing wide.

Alex Neil's side, with one win in eight, lacked confidence and it showed. No shortage of effort but crucial passes going astray and failing to assert any dominance.

It was a set-piece created on Merseyside that saw them threaten the goal for the first time as former Everton youngster Ryan Ledson crossed for Liverpool loanee Sepp Van Den Berg to head over.

At the other end, Liam Lindsay was caught dallying on the ball by Harry Cornick, and the Preston centre-half breathed a huge sigh of relief when Cornick's goalbound effort was blocked.

Cornick's main influence was his long throws. As good as a corner, hurling them in flat and fast, looking for a flick-on was providing Luton with a threat.

Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu almost opened the scoring for Hatters. His speculative long-range effort took a wicked deflection, but only dipped enough to land on the roof of the net rather than below it.

Then, Luton right-back James Bree – who scored his first career goal in midweek – unleashed a low drive from range, forcing Iversen to tip around the post. From the resulting corner the ball ended up with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall who volleyed just wide.

Bree then landed a cross just in front of Adebayo, who directed his header back to the far post, finding the palm of Iversen who got a firm hand on it.

Having no joy creating any chances of note, Preston forwards Sean Maguire and Tom Barkhuizen were finally introduced to do exactly that.

Within minutes of coming on Maguire made a nuisance of himself, while Barkhuizen went in on a 50/50 with goalkeeper Simon Sluga who bravely saved, picking up a knock in the process.

But, with seven minutes to go, it was Luton who got the all-important goal.

Mpanzu whipped a delightful cross into the six-yard box, Iversen made a magnificent save from a Dewsbury-Hall diving header but substitute Collins reacted quickest and steered in from a tight angle, the ball going in off the unfortunate Iversen.

Sluga denied a Maguire header late on to ensure Luton grabbed a deserved three points.