Dagenham: Tony Roberts, Shane Huke, Glen Southam, Jon Nurse, Dave Rainford (Benson, 63), Scott Griffiths, Anwar Uddin (c), Ben Strevens, Ross Smith, Peter Gain, Mark Arber

Subs: Dave Hogan, Sam Sloma, Paul Benson, Chris Moore, Solomon Taiwo

Town: Glyn Garner, Graeme Lee, Marc Pugh, Kelvin Langmead, Ben Herd, Ben Davies (c), Asa Hall, Steve Leslie, Andrew Cooke (Hibbert, 64), Marc Tierney, Kevin McIntyre

Subs: Scott Bevan, Dave Hibbert, Luke Jones, Chris Humphrey Jimmy Ryan

Ref: C Boyeson
Assistant: W Atkin, D Buck
Fourth Official: O Saliy

Att: 1686 (261 away)

There are two changes from the side that lost 2-1 away to Macclesfield last week, with Dave Hunt missing through injury and Luke Jones dropping to the bench. In come Graeme Lee - signed on a season long loan deal from Doncaster on Thursday - and Steve Leslie.

Daggers kicked off with a strong wind at their backs looking to end a run of three straight defeats, which had been preceded with 5 consecutive victories. Those fifteen points had seen the Essex club - sponsored by a local undertaker - come back from the dead after looking like relegation favourites just six weeks ago.

The opening quarter of an hour saw neither keeper called into action with Glen Southam getting a long range effort away early on, but though there was plenty of pace on the strike, the accuracy was lacking.

Town's first goalbound effort came from Steve Leslie but Tony Roberts in the home goal was able to gather comfortably at the second attempt.

Any purists among the sparse crowd inside Victoria Road were in for an afternoon of disappointment, with the weather conditions making for an ugly encounter. Seldom could there have been so little to report in thirty minutes of football.

Shrews grabbed a vital lead on 34 minutes through Andy Cooke. Ben Davies took a free-kick by the corner flag, Asa Hall flicked on at the near post which Roberts kept out initially. Marc Pugh headed back towards goal and in the resultant scramble, Cooke gleefully hammered the ball home from around six yards. Like most of what had gone before it, it wasn't aesthetically pleasing but no-one from Shropshire cared.

Ben Strevens did have the ball in Town's net two minutes before the interval but he was flagged offside before beating Glyn Garner, and so the away side held the slenderest of half-time leads.

H-T: 0-1

Town were grateful to Ben Herd five minutes into the second half when he intercepted Jon Nurse's teasing cross. The centre-forward had run onto a ball from Southam after the midfielder capitalised on some sloppy play from Leslie.

Despite the blue skies, the floodlights flickered into life during the interval, but with 60 minutes on the clock, the game showed little signs of doing likewise.

Dagenham were snatching at the few opportunities they had been limited to, with Nurse the chief protagonist.

Paul Simpson replaced goalscorer Cooke with Dave Hibbert midway through the half. It had been a tireless display from the frontman whose goal remained the difference between the two sides.

The visitors came within inches of doubling their advantage when new boy Lee nodded down a Marc Tierney free-kick. Asa Hall made room for the shot and his effort went agonisingly wide with Roberts beaten.

In the next attack the Southerners levelled through substitute Paul Benson who swivelled in the box and put a left foot shot high into the top corner of Garner's goal. It was the eleventh time this season that a lead had been surrendered. At two-nil with just over twenty minutes left, the hosts would have faced a Herculean task, but the goal gave them a noticeable lift and it was (poor) game on again.

The fierce winds that had blown across this tiny ground in the opening 45, had subsided dramatically but still the fare was pretty miserable. Results at this stage of the season are far more important than performances, but both sides knew the value of a win with up to ten teams still involved in deciding the league two relegation places.

The first of three consecutive matches for Town against teams battling against the drop, ended in parity. Points are precious and this one could yet prove to be a useful platform on which to build, as Shrews look for only their second win in 17 games - starting against Notts County on Monday.

F-T: 1-1

Martin Wild