No Excuses | Harrogate Town 1-0 Stags

Sky Bet League Two | Tuesday 23rd February 2021 – Whetherby Road  [Behind Closed Doors]

There are moments in life where you have to just take what’s coming to you – like when you were young and called the teacher ‘Mum’ and got laughed at, or when you didn’t realise you had put your top on inside out and couldn’t quite figure out why people were sniggering. Or, like when you’re Mansfield Town, defend woefully and the manager makes no excuses for you: take it in, suck it up and for goodness sake, put it right.

Mansfield Town suffered a third consecutive defeat thanks largely to a moment of weak defending just nine seconds into the second half – but also thanks to a combined display which lacked flare, energy, leadership, desire or any form of idea.

The truth is, I could sit here and rant about how poor we are – weigh up the pros and cons, but what’s the point? It can’t change what happened last night, or what’s happened to the Stags since our mother nature enforced break – the only thing that can, is honesty and hard work.

We’ve had some part of the former through Nigel Clough’s post-match reaction which protected nobody and refreshingly told it how it was – what comes next is down to the players, who need to get back on the training ground, step things up a bit and when Saturday comes – put things right.

Positivity breeds positive results, and likewise negativity breeds negative results – we’ve had the positive spell and pulled away from danger, but one or two more negative displays and results and we’re right back in that black hole.
I full believe that Clough and his staff will ensure the negative patch will stop quicker than his predecessor, and I do believe we have enough in the squad to rise to that – especially the younger players who have that desire and ambition which we’ve been lacking.

Morecambe of course will be tough, they’re having an excellent season – but we are capable of matching that as we’ve shown, let’s find the energy and desire to actually fight and perform for the shirt – get through to the end of the season safe, and start again.

Forget it, accept it for what it is and move on! As I always say, fall down seven times, stand up eight.  

Click HERE to read the clubs official match report.

​STAGS: Aidan Stone | James Perch, Farrend Rawson, Ryan Sweeney, Stephen McLaughlin (Mal Benning HT)
|Jason Law (Stephen Quinn 73) George Maris (Tyrese Sinclair 85), Ollie Clarke © | Harry Charsley (Kellan Gordon 56), Jamie Reid, Jordan Bowery (Oli Sarkic 89)
Unused Subs: Marek Stech, Aaron O’Driscoll, Oli Sarkic