Sam Ricketts reflects on Town's 0-0 draw with the Imps as Shrewsbury make it four unbeaten on the road.
Shrewsbury were unable to find the breakthrough in an open game against a 10 man Lincoln side. Town looked the more dominant in the second half and looked to kill the game off when Bolger was sent off for an elbow on Whalley in the 80th minute.
Sam spoke to Shrewsweb soon after the final whistle and gave his initial reaction to the game.
"I'm really pleased with the performance overall," said Sam. "I thought for an away performance we were excellent to be honest with you. You can see an awful lot from the side tonight in terms of improvement. They all look like a real team now who all know what their individual jobs are and what to do out of possession. There was a real togetherness, we're really hard to play against.
"At times we moved the ball well, the longer the game moved on the better and better we moved the ball."
"In the first half when we wanted to turn over possesion we wanted to break quickly and if that wasn't on we needed two or three passes to settle down and move the ball which we couldn't do in the first half.
"In the second half we grew and trusted each other, we knew who had space and how to utilise it, unfortunately, we just couldn't break them down when they went down to 10 men."
Sam gave his thoughts on Bolger's sending off.
"The build-up to the red card was part of our game plan, we wanted to turn the ball over, use Shaun's pace in behind and I think the defender has tried to block Shaun off as he knows he's never going to beat him for pace, whether he's meant to catch him in the head or not I don't know but I think that's what did it is a forearm to the face. It is a red card, I'm not saying he meant it but I think that should be the outcome when something like that happens."
Sam spoke about the intensity and demand he wanted to see from his forward players this evening.
"I put a lot of emphasis and demand on the forwards today, in and out of possession, what I demanded from them isn't achievable for 90 minutes so substitutions for them were always on the cards. I thought Fey and Jason worked really hard and they were two of the most energetic performances I've seen from them which is really pleasing. Then you have Dan and Shaun on the bench ready to come on late and light the game up, Shaun certainly does that and Dan did very well again we just couldn't get that goal."
Town have now recorded their sixth clean sheet in twelve league games which is more than satisfactory for Sam.
"Lincoln average two points a game here so we knew it was a tough place to come on a Friday night as well where there's a little bit extra atmosphere. I think you could tell the atmosphere diluted the longer the game went on, the supporters were becoming more frustrated as we were on the front foot."