Sam Ricketts: Shrewsbury Town showed great resilience

Second half goals from Fejiri Okenabirhie and Luke Waterfall earned a 2-0 victory, just their third on the road in the league this season and by the biggest margin.

Salop climbed four places from 19th to 15th and put four points between themselves and the bottom four.

Ricketts did not feel his side were anywhere near their best at Roots Hall, but he was delighted with the way his side dug in and battled their way to a hugely encouraging three points.

"It's a really significant win, it comes on the back of a really good performance last week but a loss (against Portsmouth)," said Ricketts.

"The performance wasn't as good today, different circumstances, probably the pressure of the game, we couldn't get into our flow.

"But what we did show is the resilience to go on and win the game which is really pleasing.

"We made a few tweaks at half-time, winning more second balls, we weren't great by any stretch but it was a win we had to grind out.

"Ultimately at this stage of the year the most important thing is being able to show we can grind out wins."

Top scorer Okenabirhie netted his 15th goal of the season with a fine finish after the break. Town had edged the first half but neither side had mustered a shot on target.

"We're lucky we have really good quality up front, sometimes it's hard to pick the team. Fey, Tyrese (Campbell), Aaron (Amadi-Holloway), Stefan (Payne) and Sam Smith, it's hard to chose," the Town boss added on his squad's quality in attack.

"Fey's a natural goalscorer, if you give him chances generally he'll probe he'll take more than not.

"I thought we just showed really good levels of composure, knowing how to control the game."

Ricketts revealed his pep talk to goalscorer Okenabirhie and Waterfall before the game.

The leading scorer had not netted in 11 appearances while Waterfall was without a goal since scoring against Wolves in January.

"I actually spoke to Fey and Luke before the game and said it's about time you two scored!" Ricketts added.

"Maybe I'll do that every week! It's important. Fey is a goalscorer and Luke does get goals from the back.

"It's important everyone chips in with goals, it's not just the centre-forwards, but the biggest thing is we showed a side (to us) that we can grind out a win.

"By no means were we fantastic but we did enough to win the game which is vital and really, really pleasing."