Aaron Pierre: Steve Cotterill pushing Shrewsbury Town for next season

Salop and the Tractor Boys shared a lively end-of-season stalemate as Cotterill's men wrapped up their Montgomery Waters Meadow campaign with a first home goalless draw of the season.

Defender Pierre, who impressed again to in his second game back from a lengthy calf injury spell to secure a clean sheet, explained that the manager, who watched the game from the directors' box, was pleased with Town's application.

The hosts wasted some good chances through Shaun Whalley and youngster Tom Bloxham, while substitutes Dave Edwards and Dan Udoh spurned golden openings late on.

"With the gaffer and how he wants to play, how he is, he wants to boost us and push on for next season," said Pierre.

"He just said that this game alone is going to be the start of next season.

"High energy, and make sure that we get minimum points from these kind of games where it could've gone either way.

"We kept a clean sheet, that's our base now for next season.

"A point overall is a good result, we could've snuck in and got the three points being clinical in our chances with Eddo and Dan heading on to the crossbar and just over, that could've been our three points.

"But we gave a good account of ourselves and that's the main thing.

"We were in the game, it was a bit of a basketball game but we had our chances. Unfortunately we couldn't be clinical enough to finish them, but we kept a clean sheet.

"It's always good to keep a clean sheet. As a defender that's your number one priority to get a minimum point."

Pierre and Co. limited mid-table Ipswich to few clear chances although loanee Troy Parrott fired over from inside the box in the second period.

Shrews, who left out Ethan Ebanks-Landell for a breather after carrying a niggle, remain 17th in League One and would need a win at Crewe to end the season on Sunday, with Burton losing elsewhere, to finish off in 16th.

First-team coach David Longwell said: "We're happy to get a clean sheet, which is good for the defenders, but disappointed we didn't win the game. We had some really good chances tonight.

"Chances they had in the second half mainly from counter-attacks, but we managed to snuff them out, it just shows you we were on top of the game and really going for the win, the manager said that just then.

"He just can't thank the players enough, because it's a long season. You could turn around now and say 'what are we playing for?' but it's pride, and you see that, we kept trying."