Shrewsbury Town suffered an afternoon to forget as their hopes of making the 2008-9 season one to remember suffered a real jolt. 

A week which began with lofty aspirations has ended with Town managing just one point from two games against the Bees of Barnet and Brentford. 

The sting in the tail is that Shrewsbury have now dropped down to ninth in League Two. 

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With the league table so congested, that should not be a reason in itself to press the panic button. After all, back-to-back wins can paint an entirely different picture. 

But what will be of some concern is that Town could find themselves as many as seven points adrift of the top three should results involving the other promotion pretenders in their games in hand go against them. 

They could have no complaints about slipping to a third home defeat of the season after they were comfortably second best to a Brentford team who would arguably rank as the best Shrewsbury have come up against this term. 

Defensively Town suffered a collective bad day at the office, finding hat-trick hero Jordan Rhodes and Charlie MacDonald a real handful throughout. 

But a backline which has four clean sheets to its credit in the last five games have shown enough to suggest conceding three goals in 27 first half minutes was a blip. 

What is likely to cause deeper worry is the lack of spark in the final third. 

It’s now 11 outings since Town have scored twice in one game, and it continues to baffle that a side which played with such attacking freedom in the early part of the season are now finding the route to goal arduous. 

Chris Humphrey apart, Shrewsbury lacked the genuine pace to stretch Brentford and couldn’t produce the necessary quality to break down a well-drilled defence.

The result is that chances are being neither created or converted at the same volume as they were in the early-season peaks. 

In fairness to Town’s attacking players, however, they were left with a mountain to climb after Brentford stormed into a three-goal lead inside 29 minutes. 

It was an afternoon Rhodes – on-loan from Ipswich – is unlikely to forget as he notched the perfect treble of finishes with left and right foot, as well as his head. 

The pick of his goals was the opener after just 88 seconds, a sweet half-volley from the right edge of the box which looped over the helpless Luke Daniels.

The stunning finish belonged in the Championship where Rhodes’ parent club ply their trade, but Town will have been disappointed not to have dealt with a free-kick into the box from Alan Bennett in the build-up. 

If Rhodes produced a spectacular finish for his opener, he was given a real helping hand with his second as Town proved architects of their own downfall. 

There appeared little danger as Kelvin Langmead attempted to mop up a routine ball. 

But the centre half’s attempted back header to Daniels fell woefully short and Rhodes capitalised fully, sliding the ball under Town’s stranded goalkeeper. 

It was to get worse with Rhodes putting the finish touches to his hat-trick by heading home a Charlie MacDonald cross on 29 minutes. 

Shrewsbury struggled to get any kind of rhythm to their play in the opening 45 minutes, their only real opportunities coming from a Graham Coughlan header and edge of the box efforts from Ben Davies and Chris Humphrey. 

The hosts, at least, refused to cave in after the break and rallied to give Brentford a few moments of concern.

Coughlan headed a corner just wide while Dave Hibbert – one of two half-time substitutes alongside Marc Pugh – was denied by the legs of Ben Hamer when breaking through one-on-one with the Brentford goalkeeper. 

Town eventually pulled one back on 68 minutes, Grant Holt earning reward for a tireless performance by squeezing home a Coughlan header from a Davies free-kick at the foot of the post. 

But, despite plenty of huff and puff, Shrewsbury couldn’t produce the second goal to set up a fraught ending as promising positions were wasted by indifferent delivery. 

Indeed, Brentford could even have won by a greater margin, Coughlan clearing a shot from Sam Wood as it threatened to trickle over the line while Daniels had to be alert to keep out two headers.