Scunthorpe 1 Shrewsbury 1

Last updated : 28 September 2002 By Footymad Previewer

Scunthorpe United were held to a draw by a hard working Shrewsbury side, but they had sufficient chances to have notched their third win in succession.

Iron boss Brian Laws commented: "I'm gutted we didn't win, football wise we were great, we had some good easy chances to have won it, but at least we didn't lose."

His opposite number Kevin Ratcliffe said: "I'm happy with our display and to get any type of result here is a good result, Scunthorpe are a good side, but we made ourselves hard to beat."

The early stages were dominated by Scunthorpe and Ian Dunbavin had to save from Martin Carruthers and in the sixth minute the keeper did well to push a Steve Torpey header over the bar following a good cross form Scott Brough.

Shrewsbury hit back and Luke Rodgers got the better of Nathan Stanton to fire across the face of goal beating Tommy Evans, but he was lacking support.

Dunbavin was back in action to punch away off the head of Alex Calvo-Garcia, however it was the visitors who took the lead in the 18th minute.

Nigel Jemson won the ball on the right and sent Jamie Tolley away and the overlapping Darren Moss collected his pass to find Rodgers who brilliantly dispatched the ball beyond Evans.

The Shrews almost claimed a second goal, Jemson opened the defence up to find Tolley, whose shot was wide off the mark, with Evans off his line.

After this Scunthorpe took control, Matt Redmile was lucky to see a header miss his own goal, and Jamie McCombe's left-foot shot was wide of the target.

Wayne Graves saw Dunbavin palm away a shot and the keeper did well to get to two headers by Torpey.

The home side were in a really positive mood on the re-start with an Andy Dawson free-kick going close and McCombe saw a shot blocked.

Pressure eventually told with a 53rd minute equaliser, Evans hit a long clearance to Torpey which he flicked on for Brough who pushed the ball through to Matt Sparrow, who struck a crisp right-foot shot home from 18 yards.

The visitors remained under pressure and Dunbavin saved well from Calvo-Garcia but then they almost snatched the lead again when Ian Woan's shot was blocked by Evans, the ball fell to Rodgers and his effort clipped Mark Jackson's heels and was cleared.

As the game neared a conclusion it could have gone either way as once again Dunbavin plucked a shot from Calvo-Garcia out of the air and Woan floated in a free-kick which hit the top of the bar