Ricketts happy with ‘deserved’ point for Shrewsbury

Posted Sunday, April 07, 2019 by PA

Sam Ricketts praised the drive of his Shrewsbury side after a late equaliser secured a point from a 1-1 draw against Scunthorpe.

Adam Hammill turned Shaun Whalley’s dangerous cross into his own net to pull Shrewsbury level six minutes from time, cancelling out a lead given to Scunthorpe by Kyle Wootton’s header midway through the first half.

“Ultimately, I thought it was the least we deserved from the game,” said boss Ricketts. “I think we were the ones asking the vast majority of questions.

“We kept pressing, especially second half. I think virtually the whole second half was played in our attacking half.

“We kept pushing, tried to change it a little bit, and the drive from the players to keep going right to the end was very, very good.”

Ricketts, whose side are up to 14th in the League One table, four points clear of the relegation zone, added: “We go to Gillingham next week. It will be another tough game for us, but we’ll have a week to recover and prepare and we’ll go again.

“I can’t do anything about anyone else. I can’t do anything about opposition results or performances.

“I can worry about our performance and again today I thought our performance was very, very good. Unfortunately, we just didn’t quite get the win like we got last week, but all we can worry about is ourselves.”

Scunthorpe’s caretaker manager Andy Dawson was pleased how his side, two points clear of the bottom four, defended.

The visitors produced a resilient display either side of taking the lead in the 22nd minute when Wootton headed home Tony McMahon’s cross.

Dawson said: “I thought it was probably a fair result in the end if I’m totally honest with you.

“They put a lot of pressure on us, although I felt we handled it really well in the second half.

“I actually didn’t believe they were going to score. We defended really well, we were organised. We were tight units, compact.

“Although they had a lot of the ball, we dealt with pressure, which was what we asked them to do last week – ‘Can you be resilient? Can you deal with the difficult times in games?’ – and I thought they did to be fair.

“The goal obviously is disappointing, but it’s a fantastic ball in and it’s hit Hammy at the back.

“I’ve just said to him, there’s nothing you can really do with that, get your head up.”