Jack Shepherd learning lots from Paul Huntington at Bantams

The vastly-experienced centre half is pushing for a first involvement against Newport on Monday after joining on a short-term deal earlier this week.

Huntington was named in the squad at Morecambe but Graham Alexander opted to leave him on the bench as Shepherd’s late goal salvaged a point.

Shepherd has welcomed the arrival of the 37-year-old – and plans to grill the former Carlisle skipper for plenty of advice.

“You’ve got to be like a sponge and soak up everything from someone like that,” said Shepherd.

“He’s got promotions under his belt and knows what it takes. There’s so much you can learn from the experience he’s got.

“He’s not been in the building too long but he’s a great lad from what I’ve seen so far.

“You can definitely learn a lot from him and asking questions all the time. That’s what I need to do as a youngster.”

Alexander is expected to resort to a back three again as the Bantams target their first league win in five games.

Shepherd’s equaliser, only his second senior goal, came as a huge relief to avoid a fourth straight away loss.

He added: “Every goal means something, whether it’s me scoring or anyone else. We’re all a team and one unit.

“But obviously it’s a great feeling when you get one yourself and right in front of our fans.

“I’m glad to have chipped in because it’s part of my game that I look to improve on being good in both boxes.

“You’ve got to stick to your gameplan. Whether it’s 85 minutes or 45 minutes, you’ve got to stick to what you do.

“Tell yourself it will come – and thankfully it did in the end.

“It doesn’t matter how long it takes. It was a hard-fought point but there are plenty of things to work on.

“It wasn’t a great start from us again but there were positives from the second half.”

Cheick Diabate bounced back from scoring an early own goal (Image: Tom Pearson)

Shepherd had sympathy for fellow centre half Cheick Diabate, whose early own goal put Morecambe in front for so long.

“We’ve got to look at it as a defensive unit,” he said. “It’s not just one person, it’s always the whole team.

“It’s never just one error leading to a goal, there are always two, three or four and you’ve got to learn from that.

“Those things happen. I thought Cheick had a great second half, so he’s reacted superbly.

“He’s got nothing to be upset about with that performance because he showed great resilience.

“It’s been a tough week. Saturday wasn’t good enough and we all know that as a collective.

“The first half was the same at Morecambe but I thought we looked more like us as a team in the second. Now we need to use that going into the Newport game.”