Shrewsbury Town boss Graham Turner has challenged his side to remain in the top three from now until the end of the season – starting with a win over promotion rivals Gillingham at the Greenhous Meadow tomorrow.

Town head into the fixture in third spot, but are just four points ahead of their visitors who occupy the final play-off place.

And with just 15 games left Turner knows now is the time to put together a promotion defining run.

He said: “The first thing is that we’ve got to try and cement ourselves in the top seven, and after that look towards automatic promotion.

“We believe we are good enough to do it but now it’s up the players to show they are good enough to get out of this league. We know that we’re good enough to be up there and stay up there.”

Andy Hessenthaler’s men recorded a 2-0 win over Town in September but Turner believes his side have come a long way since that defeat.

He added: “Gillingham are a dangerous side. We were beaten down there and we know they’re a strong team.

“I think we’re a better team now than we were there and so it could be an interesting barometer to see how far we’ve come.”

And Turner added confidence in the Town camp was sky high after four successive wins prior to last weekend’s postponed trip to Rotherham.

“The team is brimming with confidence,” the Town boss said. “After the last four results we have had we want to get back playing again.

“We’re on a good run of form at the moment. We’ve trained well all week and we’re looking forward to the game.”

The Town chief watched a number of returning players come through Wednesday’s reserve fixture with Burnley but admitted the Gillingham game could come too soon for them. He added: “Soon we’ll have a few more bodies coming back and it will be a nice problem to have.

“David Raven got a good 20 minutes for the reserves and has made a very good recovery from his hip problem.

“Kelvin Lomax played the whole game as did Benji van den Broek and Nathan Elder got half an hour so they’re all on the way back.”

By Alex James