Matt Doherty: Wolves must bounce back

The Saddlers inflicted Wolves' first defeat of the season on Tuesday night when they deservedly won 1-0 to stun Molineux.

It was the second successive lacklustre performance in a row from Kenny Jackett's side after they undeservedly beat Swindon 3-2 on Saturday.

Now they face another huge test of their promotion credentials, with a derby at Shrewsbury on Saturday lunchtime.

"We were really disappointed, but it's time now to see what the team is made of – to see if we have got that 'bounce-back-ability'," said ever-present Doherty.

"It was our first league defeat of the season but we were massively disappointed with the result.

"The fact it was a local derby against Walsall and we know how the fans are going to feel makes it worse.

"We don't want the result to have an effect on the winning momentum we'd built up, which is why it's going to be important to see what our reaction is like.

"We have to show the right mental strength and courage to come through and get the right result at Shrewsbury on Saturday."

"We're looking forward to the game to get this out of our heads."

Doherty warned fans the road to promotion is going to be a "bumpy" one with every team raising their game against Wolves.

"It's going to be a bumpy road and we always knew that – we were never going to win every game," he said.

"But I'm confident we'll still be right up there come the end of the season.

"It was just one of those nights when we couldn't really get going.

"But I still felt we did enough to get something – it felt different to Swindon when maybe we didn't deserve anything and won.

"It's no bad thing it's another big game and another derby. When you lose you want to play again as quickly as possible.

"We'll be right up for the game and I'm sure Shrewsbury will as well."