Goals from Flint and Watkins give Town draw at Crewe
Shrewsbury Town 2 Crewe Alexandra 2
Tuesday 23rd July 2013
Town: Burton, C., Ashton, Richards, Hickman, Carpenter, Smith, Astley, Jones, Flint, Ginnelly, Fletcher, Easthope, Molineux, Ryan, Anderson, Watkins.
Goals: Flint, Watkins.
After the late relapse against Coventry we were looking for a positive response from the boys in the opening half against Crewe. We created the first chance of the game when Scott Ryan shot just wide of the top corner after intercepting a loose pass as Crewe tried to switch play. The first half then went flat from our point of view, with Crewe posing the greater threat from set pieces which we needlessly gave away. Crewe took the lead in the closing minutes of the first half after we lost good possession in midfield.
The second half brought a much better performance from us. The introduction of forwards Kaiman Anderson and Jeff Watkins helped us gain a grip in the game as they stretched the play and helped us retain possession in the final third. Before equalising, we missed a good chance with Ryan shooting wide from 10 yards out when he would have expected to score.
Our equaliser came after some excellent individual work from Anderson on the half way line to start the attack and then provide the assist for Niall Flint who finished calmly into the bottom corner. Disappointingly we conceded another soft goal, when a long straight ball was played in behind our defence and the Crewe attacker finished well in a one on one. Fortunately we responded quickly.
Our second equaliser came from good pressing from Watkins as Crewe tried to play out from the back and he dispossessed the Crewe goalkeeper to roll the ball into a empty net. Both teams then had chances to win. Josh Ginnelly threatened numerous times with some bright wing play but we couldn’t find that final pass and some good goalkeeping from Alex Ashton in our goal kept the score at 2-2. We will be looking for a more consistent performance when we travel to Cheltenham on Saturday.
Matt Rains