Town’s five match unbeaten record came to a disappointing end at the weekend as they lost to local rivals Port Vale, writes Shrewsbury Town blogger James Pugh.

The players failed to gain revenge for last season’s home defeat to their neighbours from across the border, this time going down by 1-0 and dropping outside the play-off oppositions into eighth.

• Match pictures — click here

It was a game that had a typical derby feel about it, with plenty of meaty challenges on show and yellow cards being handed out by the poor referee.

Despite a disputable sending off for captain Graham Coughlan – a second yellow card being for an apparent deliberate handball – Town can have no excuses for the defeat as they were well below par and rarely threatened the Vale goal.

I don’t know what it is about local derbies, but results often do not go the way of teams’  form leading into the games and anything can happen on the day. But credit to Vale, they came with a game plan and deserved their win — not something which I often like to admit.

One positive from the game was the return to the starting line-up of Lewis Neal. Given more games I think he could become a real star for us as the season progresses.

A big worry at the moment is the lack of game time Elder and Bright are getting and when they do come from the bench they look rusty and short of confidence. Simpson can do no wrong by giving these players starts in the cup competitions which can benefit us in the league.

Missing on Saturday was the energy of Labadie who was suspended for the game. This, again,  suggests that when we are missing players, our squad does seem a little light – something which Simpson is keen to address and was keen to point out in a question and answer session with fans at the Prostar last week.

Let’s put Saturday’s disappointment down to a blip and hopefully Town can learn from their mistakes and get back to winning ways.

Next up is an away game against bottom side Darlington followed by the re-arranged Johnstone’s Paint Trophy game against Accrington which was postponed at the last minute because of a waterlogged pitch.

Give a thought to the die heard fans who had taken time off work, etc to make the long trip to Lancashire and find out that they had to tune around and come back without a ball being kicked.