Shrewsbury Town to keep up the hard yards

The Town No.2 revealed former Hull colleagues of his remarked after Saturday’s 1-1 draw that the league leaders admitted they struggled to keep up with and contain their hosts.

Shrews face a run of 13 games in less than seven weeks to end the League One season, beginning at in-form Burton tomorrow as 18th hosts 17th.

Steve Cotterill’s men impressed against leaders Hull as Montgomery Waters Meadow paid tribute to Steve Jagielka, who died last week. Town led through Nathanael Ogbeta’s fine free-kick, which went down as an own goal by goalkeeper Matt Ingram, before former Salop loan star Greg Docherty earned the Tigers a point with a fine effort from distance.

Wilbraham said: “Reece Burke, their centre-half who I played with at Bolton, came over at the end shaking his head saying ‘we struggled against you’ and it’s testament to the lads, how hard they work, how much pressure they put teams under.

“No-one switches off, no-one doesn’t track a runner, everyone works hard for each other. You will always made it hard for teams like that and it’s good the league leaders are noticing.

“Yes (they can carry on), I think they’ve done it since the manager took over, it’s something the manager instilled, the belief they have to run for each other, when they do that they’ve seen the results come, they will continue because it works.”

Town will be without goalkeeper Matija Sarkic, who returned from injury between the sticks on Saturday. The on-loan Wolves man jets away for international duty with Montenegro and misses at least two games.

The family and former team-mates of ex-Town hero Jagielka were invited to the Meadow as Salop paid tribute before kick-off.