THE battling qualities shown by Oxford United on Good Friday will need to be on display again today if they want to compete with promotion-chasing Shrewsbury Town, says Cameron Brannagan.

Karl Robinson’s side had to cling on for dear life as Scunthorpe United dominated the first half three days ago, but the U’s emerged with a 1-1 draw to inch closer to safety.

It gets no easier this afternoon against a Shrewsbury side who have exceeded all expectations in Sky Bet League One.

Despite dropping out of the top two following a 3-1 defeat at Rochdale on Friday, Paul Hurst’s men remain in the hunt for automatic promotion.

United will need to handle the backlash, but Brannagan is confident they can build on the positive aspects of the Scunthorpe display.

The midfielder said: “Sometimes if you’re not playing well, the best thing you can do is scrap and get what you can.

“We’re not in the best place at the minute, but the key is to stick together, keep trying to get the ball down and battle our hearts out until the final whistle, like we did on Friday.

“If we have to scrap a point out, we’ll do that because it’s better than nothing. We need to keep going.”

While the Good Friday results ensured United increased the gap to the relegation zone to six points, there is still work to do before they can be confident of playing in League One next season.

A victory would be a massive step in the right direction for United, who were in training both days over the weekend.

James Henry, who converted a penalty against the Iron, said: “We’re going there to hopefully crash their party.

“We want to go to those sorts of places and put in performances, but first and foremost at this stage of the season we want to put points on the board.

“Once we get to 52 or 53 points then we can worry about entertaining.

“We want to get those points on the board.

“If we can do that playing our style then great. If we’ve got to rough and tough it at times that’s what we’ve got to do.”