Dave Edwards: Shrewsbury Town acid test ahead after Hillsborough point

It feels like it could be the start of something after all the adversity the squad and manager have faced in recent weeks, it will be great if this is a mark in the ground for an upturn in form and results.

Before the equaliser it felt like everything was going against Shrewsbury again. It wasn’t a good performance, Wednesday created chance after chance.

And then the penalty. Barry Bannan is arguably one of the best players in the league, he is a Premier League player, ability-wise, he’s horrible to play against. For him to be stood 12 yards out at 1-0, Town fans behind that goal must have been fearing the worst.

For him to miss, and Town to score a well-worked goal soon after, can be a turning point.

It was a nice goal, from a good crossing area like the goal against Crewe, it felt like the fortune just changed, the atmosphere in the stadium – the fans got behind Shrewsbury and the home crowd got on their players’ backs.

Town built on that in the second half and with a good performance were probably the better team, it must be positive to come away from Hillsborough thinking we could’ve nicked it 2-1.

But it was a point in the bag to take home ahead of the real acid test next week against AFC Wimbledon and then Wycombe at home. You’d want at least four points from those, if you can, to really build on those two draws.

If we don’t get that positive result against Wimbledon then it could feel like an opportunity missed after the impressive draw.

Steve Cotterill has spoken about the goals scored by Ryan Bowman and Sam Cosgrove against Wednesday and Crewe, about how they were worked.

Even in my short time under him, he worked so hard on those patterns of play and best way to get into those crossing areas.

That run from outside to in was a very important tool that the manager was trying to get into us. We couldn’t quite get the understanding, whether that was because of personnel or him not being there.

He still seems to be drilling that message home and it’s starting to pay off now.

With everything, it takes time on the training field and relationships, the person playing the pass knowing the wideman will make that run, holding space out wide, split-second decisions between passer and receiver. It comes from working and playing. Hopefully it’s something we see a lot more of.

It has not been the best start defensively, but the most disappointing thing is how poor we look from crosses into the box.

Last year, we’d defend the middle of the pitch really well, force teams out wide and if they’d cross we’d have three lads who would head everything and we never looked like conceding from them.

On another day Wednesday could’ve got another couple of goals from it.

The manager has so much detail on that kind of thing, where the defenders need to be, how their shoulders should be open, how a striker should never see the number on their back. All things passed through the ages of defending.

The same through set-pieces, the lads will work really hard a day or two before a game, sometimes it does just come down to an individual who hasn’t marked his man properly.

There’s only so much work one man can do on the training pitch, the responsibility when they cross the white line does have to go to the players.

Unfortunately, maybe the pressure and an over-eagerness to impress is doing them a little injustice at the minute.