'DON'T write us off!' That's the rousing message from Accrington Stanley hotshot Paul Mullin.

While many may expect the Reds to crumble after their FA Cup dream was ended at Colchester on Tuesday night, Mullin is confident the third round replay defeat will spur them on to greater things in the Conference.

And the 29-year-old hopes to continue playing a pivotal role in their play-off ambitions as, with four months of the season still remaining, the striker is just two away from achieving his target of 20 goals.

"It's superb to have scored 18 so far," he said.

"In some ways I can't believe how well it's gone for me this season but in other ways I can because I knew I would score goals at this level.

"But to do it in our first season is more than I could have hoped for . I just want to go on from here because it would be nice to have a real push towards the end of the season and start beating some of the other teams that are challenging near the top."

Paul Howarth's former club Shrewsbury are first in line as Stanley travel to Gay Meadow tomorrow looking to avenge the 1-0 defeat they suffered early in their Conference campaign.

Mullin believes that, even back in August, there wasn't much to separate the two sides. And he believes Jimmy Quinn's Shrews will have a real battle on their hands to do the double over Stanley.

"When we first played Shrewsbury it was at the end of a hard week. We'd had the Aldershot game on the Sunday, beaten Leigh in midweek and perhaps Shrewsbury the following Saturday was a game too far," he said.

"But we've established ourselves in the Conference and have had a good cup run.

"Obviously it's disappointing not to be involved in the FA Cup now because I think we did deserve something out of the game.

"They were always going to start well because they are a decent side and had the home crowd behind them but we matched them, certainly in the second half.

"The onus was on them to attack and they did well in the first 15-20 minutes. But once we settled down we created a few chances ourselves and were unlucky not to get anything out of the game.

"But we haven't disgraced ourselves against any League opposition and it just shows how far the lads have come."

Mullin, who scored Stanley's consolation goal at Layer Road on Tuesday, added: "I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It would be easy for it to be seen as an anti climax after Tuesday but there'll be a big crowd at Shrewsbury too.

"And it seems that when we've been beaten we've always bounced back and put in a good performance so hopefully we can get on a bit of a run."