Taft wins Hasselbaink praise

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink found an unlikely hero in George Taft as his side ran out 1-0 winners in a crunch clash with Shrewsbury.

Young defender Taft scored the first goal of his senior career to lift the Brewers above their rivals into second place in the table just a point behind leaders Wycombe. Hasselbaink said: "In a game between two good sides ready to battle against each other, it's always going to be the little moment that decides it. "You have to be sharp and you have to be ready when it comes - and George took his goal very well." And the Dutchman was full of praise for the resilience shown by his side as they extended their 100 per cent home record to four games since he took charge. Hasselbaink said: "Shrewsbury came here to beat us and were ready for the battle, but my boys were ready for them as well. "They are a very, very good side and they gave us a lot of questions to answer, but I must say we looked a unit and looked very hard to break down. "It's important that you defend well if you want to be successful. The unit is all 11 and the strikers were absolutely amazing in helping the defence and working hard. "If you don't have that you don't have a platform to build on, so I'm very happy with performance." Taft struck on the hour-mark to end Town's run of five successive clean sheets. Burton's Jon McLaughlin had been the busier of the two goalkeepers as the visitors controlled the first half. He was tested twice by James Collins headers in the early stages and also covered his near post well to keep out a Bobby Grant shot. But Burton broke the deadlock when a Matt Palmer corner fell for Taft to steer in a half-volley from 12 yards. Mickey Demetriou wasted a great chance to rescue a point for the visitors when he fired over from 10 yards late on. Shrewsbury boss Micky Mellon said: "I thought the performance was very good, but we've been undone from a corner. "Apart from 10 or 15 minutes of the second half, when I thought we stopped doing the things that got us success in the first half, we were in total control. "As I said, I thought the performance was pretty good and we're disappointed with the way we lost the goal. "The lad will probably never score another goal like that in his life, so that hurts particularly. "We had opportunities at the end, rolling things across the face of the goal and maybe not hitting the target, but generally I was happy with what I saw."