KIDDERMINSTER Harriers hit the play-off zone for the first time on Saturday and defender Lee Ayres insisted it was a fair indication of how they are playing.

The young defender has cemented a place in the Harriers back-line and taken advantage of the absence of Abdou Sall.

And Ayres declared after the Shrewsbury win: "We will be disappointed if we don't get to the play-offs if we continue playing as we are but it's a long season.

"We can definitely progress and I still don't think we've played to our best yet.

"We haven't been that consistent and I do feel we can push higher. There are a few players hitting form and when we all do, we will be firing on all cylinders."

And the 20-year-old said, as other Harriers players have been stating, they have no teams to fear in Division Three.

Ayres was up against one of the best strikers in the division in Luke Rodgers but the diminutive attacker was kept off the score-sheet despite winning a penalty.

And the Harriers man said: "He's a hard player to handle but I think everyone at the back dealt with him well.

"I've no idea what the penalty was for. He jumped into me and when the referee blew his whistle, I thought he'd given a free-kick to me but then he pointed to the spot.

"Maybe because of his size, he gets away with a lot of things.

"We found it easier in the second half. They played three up-front in the first half and stretched us a bit. When we switched to four at the back, it went a lot better."

Ayres admitted Harriers players were delighted to bounce back from the Macclesfield defeat.

He added: "Everyone had an off day against Macclesfield. We needed to get back to basics and just work hard.

"We had gone nine games unbeaten in the league and it seems we were complacent in that game. We thought we could just turn up and win.

"We know now we have got to respect everyone. Macclesfield aren't a brilliant team but they worked hard. If we'd matched them for work-rate, we would have beaten them."