MANSFIELD

Whilst there was no noticeable dissent amongst the crowd in the SSU during the first half – how could there be after being given a scripted talking to by Rosie telling us we were all in it together? – the vibe I picked up during the half time chit chat was one of boredom and disinterest. Comments I recall were, “poor pitch, two poor teams” and “pity there’s no red kites about today”. I will confess that there were moments when I found my eyes wandering from the field of play. Shame on me.

But as far as I was concerned only one thing mattered and it may be stating the bleeding obvious but that was to get the three points. I didn’t particularly care how we did it. I can’t face Barrow on a Tuesday night.

The pitch was indeed awful. I don’t know the thinking behind it being watered before the off, but that said, come the close of play we’d performed well on it as we had done against Luton. Stevenage’s was sub-standard too so could it be that despite the way we’ve tried to play football we’re actually better off on a mud flat than a bowling green?

Some people’s reasoning that we won’t go down is that there are at least two worse teams than us in this League. Well, as my son said, “I think we’ve seen one of them today”. Mansfield may have beaten the Hatters at Field Mill during the week but they were dire; probably the worst opposition to come to the Kassam this season. With this being their fifth straight away defeat their fans know how bad they are on their travels and some started heading for home at 20 past 4. By the time referee Andy Woolmer ended things more than half the visitors had departed.

The Stags actually start slightly the brighter and almost went one up when the pitch nearly conspired to make Ryan Clarke look a bit daft but we got away with it.

Our team has been chopped and changed so often the most asked question of one fan to another in recent times has been, “who’s that”? It’s no surprise then that we take a little while to settle but once we went one up I genuinely felt fairly confident that we would go on to win the game by two or three goals. Mansfield were that bad.

For the most part I’m not a person who gets too carried away about formations but we looked like we had a proper shape. We never seemed out- numbered in midfield and hence we were not out fought in that vital area of the pitch. Nor did we allow much space of note on the flanks in which the opposition could operate.

I sincerely hope that any tinkering of formation and personnel will now be kept to a minimum because I cannot really fault any player’s performance once we settled into the game. The three goal margin did not flatter us and in the second period we played some good attacking football. We looked confident and that is not something we’ve been able to say that often this season. It makes such a difference going forward, taking players on and getting men and the ball into the box. Do that and chances will come. It does of course help when the defence you are up against is a bit inept but you can only beat what is in front of you.

That was the first time we’d scored three in the League since mid September and the first time we’d won by a three goal margin for a touch over a year. That was a victory by the same score against the same opponents. Only two players who turned out for us that day faced the Stags this time round. It really had been all change.

Perhaps at last the rate of change will slow down with us hopefully having hit on the right combination. After one victory though I’m not going to suddenly change my tune to one of Michael Appleton being the man for the job. I’ll continue to look at the whole body of evidence. I’m mindful that after my keyboard tappings following Stevenage and Luton along came the performances at Accrington and Burton.

There are however some who think he is the ideal man. One of my mates drove past the County Ground in that place down the road the other day and spotted a sign that someone had put up proclaiming, “In Appleton we trust”.

The full-backs did a proper job and that obviously includes Sam Long who again was playing out of position. I hope the knockers will acknowledge that our centre-halves were not far from being faultless, other than not being six foot six and a bit chunkier.

Michael Collins looked assured in the centre of the park, ably assisted by Josh Ruffels and the two wide men tucked in and did work there too at times. There’s no denying that Alex MacDonald looked a bit special.

Up front Danny Hylton was what Danny Hylton is and Patrick Hoban gets better by the game. He’s a nuisance, has muscle, can hold it up and has a better touch and vision than I’d first given him credit for. So what if he hasn’t scored yet.

It was Hoban who had two defenders and keeper, Lenny Pidgeley, to contend with but got off the ground first and caused the flimsy custodian to spill the ball for MacDonald to bag the first. Never a foul, just whinging from the visitors.

One thing I particularly liked about this goal was that it came from a throw in. We’ve had a habit of being as likely to give the ball away as keep it in such situations. This time we had two players moving for the ball. Junior Brown was beaten, Sam Baldock turned into a winger and that was it.

In the build up to goal number two I thought there was a suspicion of a foul in the box on Hylton but instead of collectively feeling hard done by we got on with the matter in hand. With defenders coming sliding in on him COD beat them but couldn’t finish it off himself. Pidgeley’s block fell to Collins who controlled the ball in a tangley kind of way before teeing up MacDonald. With plenty of players of each persuasion about there was only one channel available through which to despatch the ball into the net. Our new hero did this with perfection.

Any Mansfield fan who claims Hoban was not touched when we were awarded a penalty has serious problems. Hylton’s conversion was Balotteli like. Similar to the Liverpool man ours too has a nutty streak in him. It was madness to blatantly use his hands trying to score, particularly when on a yellow. We were lucky not to be reduced to 10 men and it was a good decision by Mapp to get him off almost immediately afterwards.

The Stags had cause for complaint over that but I thought the challenge that brought his yellow was just one of those things that happens when a player jumps for the ball. If that was seen as a red in itself then the same should have resulted following a couple of challenges they put in. Collins took a bit of a whack just before the end.

After such a satisfactory day I don’t really want to end on something that could be construed as a negative but feel the need to make comment on the gate. 6953 (with just 322 from further up the Midlands) sounds impressive and I applaud the club for dishing out free tickets to schools, boys teams etc. in the hope of instilling in them a life time habit of following OUFC, but I wonder how many are actually paying to come through the gates these days and what it means for the club’s finances. That said more performances and results like this will hopefully mean more people queuing at the ticket office and handing over their hard earned.