Boss warns over ‘false dawn’

Improving Shrewsbury Town head to League Two strugglers Notts County tomorrow with boss Gary Peters urging: “Let’s make sure this isn’t a false dawn.”Town produced one of their best performances of the season last weekend to beat Macclesfield 2-0 and climb back into the top half of the table.

That contrasts with an out-of-sorts Magpies side who have lost four on the trot - including last Saturday’s embarrassing FA Cup defeat to non-League Havant & Waterlooville.

“We don’t want it to be a false dawn - we want to be making sure we’re ready to go again and that we don’t play like we did against Rotherham (a 2-0 defeat),” said Peters.

“We went into that one after a good performance against Barnet (a 1-0 win) but we couldn’t follow it up.

“We’ve got to look to show some consistency. You only have to look at Rotherham for proof of that.

“They had seven wins on the trot and it’s got them into the top three. It’s possible and it’s something we need to do - to start winning football matches.”

Peters is also cautious of reading too much into one FA Cup result - highlighting the recent Rotherham experience as evidence.

Town went to Millmoor straight after the Millers had also gone out of the FA Cup to non-League opposition in the shape of Forest Green Rovers.

But they were transformed against Shrewsbury and Peters believes Notts County could do the same, especially with key players such as veteran striker Jason Lee returning from injury.

“They lost to Havant & Waterlooville on Saturday and I went and watched them lose to Peterborough on Tuesday,” he added.

“Our chief scout went to both games and he said they’d come on bundles on Tuesday.”

Town also have big match players of their own returning from long spells on the sidelines, however.

Creative midfielder Ben Davies produced a man of the match display in his first start of the season last weekend, while defender Luke Jones has also shown no ill effects of his own lengthy lay-off.

Tomorrow’s game has come too soon for experienced striker Andy Cooke, but he is also close to a return to action.

“It has been like having new players in the squad and it will be the same, and maybe even more important than the others, when Cookie is available again because he was in such good form when he got injured,” the Town chief said.