Duo earn praise as Shrewsbury make it five wins on the bounce

Shrewsbury battled hard on a tough surface at the Kassam Stadium, and when second-half substitute Ryan Bowman scored a wonderful volley – it put Shrews on course for their fifth League One win in a row.

The hosts were the brighter of the two sides in the first period and Marosi, who has not been called into action on too many occasions during Shrews' good run, made a couple of important stops.

Dunkley, who has started every single league game, also made some vital interceptions and the Town boss was keen to praise the pair at full-time.

"He hasn't been called upon a lot to keep clean sheets," Cotterill said about Marosi.

"It's mostly been down to the back three that have probably protected him.

"But I thought today he's made some important saves and at important times.

"Chey Dunkley, I thought he was magnificent today.

"He made one mistake and had he had long studs in it (the ball) probably wouldn't have snuck under his boot.

"That one sneaks under his boot and Marko makes a great save at an important time."

"I'm pleased with the three points. I think we could've played better today. I think they're a very good team as I said in the build-up to the game.

"They changed things around a little bit. They're fresher today than I thought we were going to be but they freshened up a few positions and they were always a threat in the game.

"We worked a lot on their long throws and their corners because we knew that was going to be really key today.

"I thought, how the lads defended those long throws, I thought they were a real threat.

"They caused Barnsley trouble the other night with those long throws and when Elliott Moore come up in the box, he's a big unit and it's hard to stop him when he hides behind someone, comes in, gets the flick, and then on the back of that you've got (Sam) Long coming in, (Ciaron) Brown is very good in the air – they're really difficult situations.

"When you're down there and defending that area, you can't make any mistakes. You've got to get to every second ball, get it out of your box and get rid of that moment.

"We've done a fair bit of work on that in the build-up and thankfully that paid off today."

Bowman got his fourth goal of the season, and it was the second time in two weeks the forward had come off the bench to score the winner for Salop.

Tom Bloxham also made an impact off the bench when he came on and the boss was delighted with the pair.

He said: "As we've said before, there are key moments in games. Tom Bloxham's effort, he doesn't always understand out-of-possession, Tom, so it can be a bit of a risk. I just felt we needed something a little bit different today. I nearly made the changes at half-time but I thought I'd give the lads a few more moments out there.

"That also helps the players who have come on because they haven't got to start in a 45-minute block when they haven't been playing a lot of games.

"So Tom, great effort. Ryan's goal was a great goal - I'm really pleased for him. And yeah, we're delighted with the three points and with the clean sheet."