Shrewsbury v AFC Wimbledon preview: Luke Waterfall expects Dons to be tougher than Donny

Shrewsbury must secure three points against the side that prop up the League One table if they are going to win a third straight league game for the first time this season.

Confidence in the Town fanbase has received a shot in the arm after back-to-back wins against Peterborough and Doncaster, with 17th-placed Town now four games unbeaten.

The latest win, on Tuesday, put Sam Ricketts’ side five points clear of the drop zone just a few weeks after they sat 23rd.

A 2-1 win at AFC Wimbledon’s Kingsmeadow in November – which featured a Waterfall brace, including a last-minute winner – prolonged John Askey’s tenure before he was sacked nine days later.

“It’s nice to score and to get two that day, last-minute winners are always nice but we need to carry on this run now and start looking up rather than down,” said defensive regular Waterfall.

“We spoke about it a hell of a lot, the away record, hopefully it’s another thing we can improve on going forward.

“You can never ever take anything for granted. We can’t think that because we’ve beat two good teams that we’ve finally cracked it, it’s not like that in this league.

“Wimbledon might be bottom but it’ll be a tough, tough game, if not as tough, then probably tougher than Doncaster.”

“We’ve got to keep taking it one game at a time and be 110 per cent in every game.”

Wally Downes’ men have shown signs of a revival in recent weeks.

They were able to build on an excellent FA Cup run, including a victory over West Ham before going out to Millwall, with some imperative league victories. The Dons won at drop zone rivals Walsall before coming out on top in a crunch topsy-turvy 4-3 victory at Rochdale.

But the 2-1 home defeat to Charlton last time out stunted Wimbledon’s progress as sides above them, such as Shrewsbury, managed to win.

A victory tomorrow would be Town’s first league double of the season.

“They’ve picked up the last couple of weeks and had a good Cup run, they’ve probably drawn confidence from that,” added Waterfall.

“Nobody is expecting an easy game, even though they’re bottom of the league – I don’t read too much into that.

“They’ll be coming here fighting for their lives and the three points, just like we were on Tuesday night. They’ll be doing exactly what we were in the second half on Tuesday.

“If we can play the football we did in the first half and defend as well as we did second half, then we’ll be fine.”

The defender knows the run of three games against Wimbledon, Rochdale and Plymouth are crucial in easing Town’s relegation fears.

He added: “We’ve come out of the two games with six points which is absolutely fantastic.

“I said to myself if we could come out with a good little points total then we’ve got three games against teams around us.

“We need to be looking at doing well against them, racking the points up in these three games.

“That’s not to put pressure on anyone else, any of the lads, but if we want to fire ourselves up the table we need to go and get these points.”