Steve Cotterill: Mission accomplished for Shrewsbury

Town made it five seasons in a row in the third round and six in seven attempts with a gritty 2-1 victory in dire weather conditions at League Two strugglers Carlisle.

In doing so Cotterill's Town won back-to-back games for the first time this season.

Teenager Tom Bloxham, 18, scored the crucial early opener that looked to be enough until returning hometown boy Ryan Bowman struck against the club he supported and played for as a kid 10 minutes from time. Jordan Gibson netted a stoppage-time effort for the hosts but it was not enough.

Instead it was Salop celebrating their 370-mile round trip in front of a vocal backing of more than 350 supporters. Cotterill insisted reaching the third round again was a target at the beginning of the season and Town have already pocketed £111,000 from the competition this season.

The win was an ideal way to begin a long week on the road for Town, who head to Wigan in League One on Wednesday before a trip to Doncaster next Saturday. The only dampener was the first-half loss to injury for returning skipper Ethan Ebanks-Landell, who hobbled off after tweaking his hamstring following two games out. Josh Daniels, however, did return from five weeks on the sidelines.

"It's probably just that, job done, it wasn't the prettiest of games, very difficult pitch, heavy pitch for both teams," Cotterill said of a fifth win in 10 in all competitions for his improving side.

"We thought Ethan (Ebanks-Landell) was OK, he trained well for two days, but then had the interruption (of losing him to injury) and that disrupted us a little bit and we didn't quite grab hold of the game.

"I thought we started the game great, managed to get into situations we wanted to get in to score the goals.

"We scored and then stopped doing it a little bit, they came back into the game, with a passionate crowd behind them over this side.

"Obviously they had nothing to lose, I thought we defended well up until conceding the goal late on, it was a slight lapse in concentration over that side but we'd made subs so that can happen.

"But at the end of the day it was a tough place to come, long journey and thankfully we're in the third round which is where we wanted to be when we started this journey."

He added: "The third round is something we wanted when we first started off, we wanted to look forward to the third round and getting a good tie.

"But we couldn't talk about the third round draw until we were in it - and thankfully we're in it.

"There's no point saying that (who we want to face in Monday evening's draw), so many balls go into that pot, you couldn't for the life of you guess who you're going to get, we'll take what we're given."

Bloxham and Bowman struck two fine finishes 10 minutes in and then 10 minutes from time to do the damage against the Blues who battled hard on a physical afternoon but never looked like pulling level against their visitors from the division above.

The second marked a perfect return for local lad Bowman, whose family were in the crowd, while Bloxham's opener capped a significant week for the 18-year-old, who impressed for Town against Sunderland and Charlton and passed his driving test at the second time of asking on Friday, leading to amusing car wheel celebrations in front of the away end.

"I was really pleased with the goals, it's always pleasing when the strikes score," the manager added.

"My ideal scoreline is 2-0, didn't quite get that but if somebody would've offered it (2-1) me before the goal I suppose I'd have taken it, although I wanted the clean sheet.

"But I'm pleased with Tom's goal, he's had a great week, passed his driving test and scored today, a great week for young Tom.

"And another excellent pass from Dan Udoh to Ryan Bowman who I thought finished it off great."