Huddersfield v Shrewsbury: Paul Hurst challenges Town to rise to occasion at Terriers

Shrewsbury Town are still searching for their first point of the League One campaign after losing their opening two fixtures of the season.

And the games do not get any easier for Hurst’s men as they take on the Terriers – a side who have beaten both of the teams Town have already played.

“It is going to be a massive challenge,” he said. “We go into what will be, I would imagine a pretty full stadium, a big stadium.

“They were a Championship team last season, and you would hope that would be more than enough to hopefully inspire players rather than go under.

“Having watched their games to date, as you would expect, they look a really good team.

“They are big, physical and difficult to find too many weaknesses if I am being totally honest. But like I said, these are the games where you hope the players can step up and really rise to the challenge.

“For me, that is where you find out a bit more in terms of some character.”

Town are dealing with an injury crisis at the moment. Their captain Carl Winchester has a groin problem, while Josh Feeney, Morgan Feeney, Jordan Rossiter and George Nurse have all missed games due to fitness.

And with the number of defenders with fitness problems, it looks like Town will have to pick the same personnel for the foreseeable future.

“Options are clearly limited,” he continued. “There is no getting away from that. We will have to see how the likes of Winni (Carl Winchester) are ready for the weekend to see what team we can put out there.

“At the moment, with injuries to defenders, it is looking difficult to really change too much from that point of view.

“Perhaps we could look at a different system, we did that towards the back end of last season to try and combat that.

“But at the minute, it is more a case of getting to training ground seeing who is fit and then trying to put your best foot forward ready for a massive challenge.”

You would expect the majority of the Shrewsbury team who started on Tuesday evening to be involved dependent on the fitness of Winchester. Taylor Perry has not played a minute in league action yet, but with the way things have gone in the last week or so, it looks like he will have to come into the fold this time out.

That is another disadvantage for Shrews. Michael Duff’s side did not play in midweek, so will have had extra time to recover.

They convincingly beat Posh 2-0 on the opening day of the campaign, and Harvey’s White’s 90th-minute penalty for Stevenage last weekend made their clash look closer than it was – they had led for the vast majority of that game.