http://www.shropshirestar.com/show_article.php?aID=38041
Mansfield 4 Town 0
This bottom-of-the-table curse is rapidly becoming more than a minor irritation. Because if there was frustration at the defeats at Torquay and Bury, it was nothing compared to the disappointment felt at Field Mill last night.
Nine points have now been frittered away when Town have come up against the Football League's bottom club. Three victories in those games would have left Shrewsbury sitting proudly on top of the table this weekend.
Shrewsbury's excellent work against League Two high-fliers will count for nothing if they don't find a way to accumulate victories over the stragglers.
This was a night of below-par performances from the vast majority of Peters' line-up, highlighted by a torrid six-minute spell midway through the second half when Town shipped three goals.
By that stage Shrewsbury were already behind - trailing to a wonder volley from 35 yards from the right boot of Giles Coke in the fifth minute.
So ineffective were Shrewsbury in the first 45 minutes that Gary Peters had little option but to adjust the new-look formation at the interval, transforming his team to include three strikers rather than a trio of central defenders.
And, for a short time, it would appear the switch was going to yield a fightback.
But then, temporarily one would hope, Shrewsbury's world caved in. Mansfield began to pour forward in numbers from midfield and a usually reliable defensive unit capitulated in that six-minute nightmare.
The full version of this story appears
in tonight's Shropshire Star