Shrewsbury Town vs Charlton Athletic. Sky Bet League One Play-Offs Semi-Final.
Montgomery Waters MeadowAttendance9,016.
2-0
Wednesday 23 May 2018 08:09, UK
A Carlton Morris goal was enough to steer Shrewsbury past Charlton and into the Sky Bet League One play-off final.
The Shrews striker fired home the only goal of the game in the second half to secure a 2-0 aggregate victory over the Addicks.
Jon Nolan's first-leg effort had given Paul Hurst's side the advantage heading into Sunday's tie, and Charlton, who finished 16 points behind Shrewsbury in the league, rarely seriously threatened to squeeze through themselves.
Shrewsbury will now face either Scunthorpe and Rotherham at Wembley on Sunday, May 27, with those two sides level at 2-2 heading into their second leg at the New York stadium on Wednesday.
The first half was goalless but not short of talking points, with Charlton feeling particularly aggrieved on two occasions. After 16 minutes Morris put an extremely rough elbow-first challenge in on Patrick Bauer, but came away without a caution, and then shortly before the break Mat Sadler appeared to handball Joe Aribo's cross, but the referee waved play on.
And Shrewsbury would take advantage after 58 minutes as Morris put them into the lead, capitalising on some fine work from Shaun Whalley down the right before firing the ball inside Ben Amos' near post.
Charlton pushed for a way back into the game but Shrewsbury managed to see out the tie, booking a second trip to Wembley this season after losing in the Checkatrade Trophy final to Lincoln last month.
There were plenty of heroes for Shrewsbury on Sunday, but it was the resilient defensive display of Godfrey that saw him top the rest. He was imperious in dealing with everything Charlton had to throw at him.
Paul Hurst: "I think we've got the better set of players and we've proved that [this season] by beating them three times out of four. Charlton had a really good spell in the first half, but there were a few harsh words at half-time and I think we got on top of them and then we delivered. For me we were the better team.
"I'm very proud of them but we've not achieved promotion yet, there's still one more to go. Commiserations to Charlton and Lee [Bowyer] and his players, I've been in that position and it's not nice. They gave us two tough games."
Lee Bowyer: "They scored two goals and we didnt, but were they the better side over two legs? I don't think so. First half we dominated possession but didn't take care of the ball in the final third, and that was the difference. We were on top but we didn't take our chances again, and if you don't take your chances you won't win games."
The Sky Bet League One play-off final is at Wembley on Sunday, May 27, live on Sky Sports Football with kick-off at 3pm.
