Plymouth Argyle and Scunthorpe United played out a goalless first half, but either side could have broken the deadlock before the interval.

The visitors started brightly with Gary McSheffrey and Terry Hawkridge both close to opening the scoring with barely three minutes on the clock.

Plymouth were under significant pressure in the opening exchanges as they had to defend successive corners and block efforts from McSheffrey again and Sam Winnall.

However, the Devon club started to threaten the Scunthorpe goal as Lewis Alessandra went close, but saw two efforts sail over Sam Slocombe's goal.

His attacking play seemed to bring his teammates to life as first Conor Hourihane forced a save out of Slocombe and then Reuben Reid also went close for Argyle.

The Iron continued to pose their own threat as McSheffrey saw his shot from a tight angle drift narrowly wide moments before the break.

Scunthorpe came into this game on the back of a 20-game unbeaten run, but have failed to win their last four matches.