HURST: IT’S THE PLAY-OFFS NOW
STUTTERING Shrewsbury slept through the second half as Paul Hurst admitted his team’s ‘SundayLeague’ performance allowed brave Bury to all but extinguish their automatic promotion hopes.
Hurst had watched Abo Eisa open the scoring early on with a brilliant solo goal before Jay O’Shea’s equaliser showed that despite being down, the Shakers are most certainly not out.
The rejuvenated visitors continued to grow in confidence as the game went on but Shrewsbury may now have to overcome their own apparent lack of belief after Hurst hit out at the lacklustre defending which saw him draw comparisons with Sunday League play.
“The goal we conceded summed up the second half for us as far as I am concerned,” Hurst said.
“We were slow to react and got caught out of position – you criticise Sunday League teams for that!
“We played some decent football in the first half but we were far too slow after the break.
“Although we were playing in a different style, I feel the players should have got to grips with it better.
“If anyone looked like they would go on and win it was Bury.
“Realistically we won’t go higher than third so we’re preparing for the play-offs.”
Bury started brightly when George Miller forced a fifthminute save from Dean Henderson.
But Shrewsbury struck first as Max Lowe released Eisa down the left on 13 minutes, taking the ball from inside his own half and shrugging off Ryan Cooney’s challenge before unleashing a 25-yard strike beyond the dive of Joe Murphy on his first start for the club.
Murphy beat away a venomous Bryn Morris strike as Shrewsbury failed to double their advantage.
And Miller failed to get a telling touch on Cooney’s freekick as Bury pressure started to build in the second half.
Bury efforts did pay dividends when O’Shea lashed a shot into the net after making a sharp 66th-minute incision into the Shrewsbury penalty area to put the Shakers back level.
Nathan Thomas went close to restoring the home side’s lead when his 83rd-minute volley flashed past the Bury post.
But neither side could snatch a winner as Bury boss Ryan Lowe praised the Shakers’ battling display.
“To come to Shrewsbury who are having a great season, and take a point off them, as well as three earlier in the season, is a big plus for us,” he said.
“We could have gone on and won it. We dominated large parts of the game so I’m really pleased.
“You have to give us a lot of credit because of how we moved the ball. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb early on but we played our way back into the game and scored a great equaliser.”