Steve Cotterill praises Shrewsbury's 'heart and courage' in Sheffield Wednesday win

Town were good value for their lead, handed to them by Matthew Pennington, before missing some glorious chances and then surviving a late Wednesday onslaught.

But the hosts stood firm to take 10 points from their last 12 and boss Cotterill was pleased with what his saw.

“We would like to be better on the ball and we’re still working to be better, but some of our moments in the first half were very good,” he said.

“Some of our moments at the start of the second half were very good. Then we started to dip a little bit and I knew that was going to happen.

“I just hoped by the time we got to 60 or 65 minutes that we’d be in front, because that would have given us the strength to potentially hold on to it.

“Had they maybe scored a goal after 65 or 70 minutes, I think that clock would have been even slower for me.

“It’s a great credit to our boys. They worked really hard in pre-season to get that base and when some of them are not playing it’s very difficult.

“Hence why I put Rekeil (Pyke) on and took him off. I don’t like doing those sort of things but I wasn’t prepared for it to cost us.

“Sometimes when you go on after not playing a lot of football, it’s very difficult, as Sheffield Wednesday found out when they played Sunderland after not playing football. They might be fit young men but you can lose fitness very quickly.

“We had great heart, character and courage from us at the end.”

The Sunday clash was Town’s third in a week as the club continued their impressive run of form.

And Cotterill is now planning to reward his players with some time off to recover from the festive schedule.

He added: “It was tough. That third game in the week against a really good team.

“They may have lost their last game but they’re a really good team that has some really good players with an incredible support behind them everywhere they go.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game and with it being the third game this week it has become a really difficult week for us.

“Especially with it being around Christmas. Our lads have been in a lot and now we can perhaps shut them down for a few days before they can prepare for the Liverpool game.

“It’s been an incredibly difficult week and in that last 25 minutes that clock seemed to be going a lot slower than what I was hoping, that’s for sure.”