TALENTED defender Nathan Clarke made a solid return to Town's ranks
and admitted: "We had to dig deep." Dropped for two matches after Town's exit from the Johnstone's Paint
Trophy, Clarke has no intention of losing his place again. "Everyone needed to be on top form and, thank God, everyone was," he
said. "Scunthorpe are riding high and we knew it would be tough, so we had
to dig deep in what was a positive performance and, scoring a late equaliser like we did gives everyone confidence." Of Booth's 86th-minute equaliser, Clarke added: "It's undefendable.
"The ball is hung up there, you know it's coming and you know that
Boothy is going to come powering over the top of you. "He does it time and again in training and I feel sorry for the
defenders to be fair." Clarke was happy with Town's 4-1-4-1 formation - "it feels
comfortable and makes us more solid" - and also to resume alongside Martin McIntosh in the centre of defence. "I didn't really think I deserved to be dropped, but it's taken four
years so I must have done pretty well over that time," he remarked. "I wanted to carry on playing myself out of a few tricky
performances, but the gaffer made the decision and I just got my head down in training and made myself determined to get back. "I'm delighted now to be back. I know I haven't been playing to my
absolute best so far, but I'll get that form back again." Top-flight scouts from Spurs, Manchester United, Bolton, Wigan and
Sheffield United were in the crowd, along with Wolves, Sunderland, Barnsley and Coventry from the Coca-Cola Championship. Town chief Peter Jackson said: "I couldn't defend by players after
the Brighton match, but this was much better and the likes of Nathan, young Joe Skarz and Jon Worthington have done really, really well. "It would have been easy for me to possibly go to the board and try
to bring a left-back in because of Danny Adams' suspension, but I believe in bringing Academy products through and Joe did himself a lot of credit. "I was extremely pleased how the formation worked for us. It should
have provided a platform for victory for us with all the chances we created, but there's always the scope to change things if you are chasing the game and that's what I did." Scunthorpe boss Brian Laws, who could be named the new manager of
Sheffield Wednesday in the next 24 hours after two interviews for the post, said: "This is a difficult place to come because Jacko has always got them working very hard. "People looking at the 4-1 from last season should have realised it
was just going to be impossible this time because they are more wary of us. "I thought we did well to cut out the crosses, allowing only five
all game, but it only takes one for Booth to score. He's as good as anyone in the air." On his own future, Laws said: "Nothing has been decided and I'll be
seeing my players as usual on Monday. "Who knows what will happen after that? Hopefully things will get
sorted out."