Bernard McNally column: Errors put a dampener on fine Shrewsbury fightback

A lot of the fans I spoke to thought it was going to be a tight 0-0 or a 1-1 with both sides cancelling each other out.

I think the real disappointing thing, certainly for Sam Ricketts, were the mistakes on our part.

Omar Beckles’ error didn’t lead to the first goal directly but it came from the resulting corner and then there was no challenge in the box.

Joe Murphy will have been disappointed with his part in the third goal.

You have those days but it’ll still be so disappointing for Sam. The positive side of it was how we got back into the game.

At 3-3 you think a point is better than nothing.

I was sitting next to an old goalkeeper I played alongside, Bob Wardle. It was great to catch up with him, he’s a lovely guy. At 3-2 Bob said to me he could see us getting another goal.

Then we got the third and he thought we were going to go and win it. It had that feel about it.

I think we’ll see a couple of changes to the team moving on to this Saturday against Mansfield and as players that will be expecting that.

To claw ourselves back in the game from 3-1 down and lose was sheer disappointment. We’ve got enough experience in the side to know we needed to close our ranks and keep it tight. Maybe we showed too much over-exuberance. It’s a funny balance.

The right thing when you get it back to 3-3 is to close ranks and at least see it out.

To me it was definitely a penalty early on for the foul on Louis Thompson.

It just seemed to me the referee lost it completely and then didn’t know who he was booking. He lost it for 10 or 15 minutes and was very unsure of himself.

Goalscorer Josh Laurent seems to be getting better. I don’t think to this point he has overly inspired, but over the last four or five games he looks better.

Physically he’s a specimen, he’s got strength and can run with it. He can ghost past players. Maybe the confidence of scoring has made a big difference.

He seems to be growing in stature physically and mentally.

We can’t count our chickens against Mansfield in the Fa Cup and the players will know that. When you go out there in any tie against lower opposition you’ve got to go out, put your foot in, and win the battle first. Then you earn the right to play.

I’m very confident we’ll come away with a win and reach that hallowed third round. I’m looking forward to it.

Mansfield aren’t riding high in League Two. As long as we don’t think we’ve only got to turn up, we should be OK.