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Archived News from January 2015

RESERVES: BURTON 2-1 MANSFIELD
29th January 2015 23:56


Monday 26 Jan 2015
at St Georges Park, Burton

Slade 22, Sedjic 41. Heslop 47.

Stags: Studer;
Marsden, Dempster, Corbin Shires, Beevers;
Joe Fitzpatrick, Heslop, McGuire, Lambe;
Fisher, Rhead.
Subs: Hampson, Dwyer, Slone, L.Thomas, Blake

Ian Sharps played for Burton.

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Stags narrowly beaten at Burton
mansfieldtown.net, 26th January 2015

Second-string put up valiant effort against the Brewers and are unlucky not to snatch a point.

Read more at http://www.mansfieldtown.net/news/article/stags-narrowly-beaten-at-burton-2228353.aspx#6x2pzxgKMd5D9o1L.99

Our reserve team were unable to gain their first win of the campaign in the Final Third Development League (East Division) as they slipped to a narrow 2-1 defeat at Burton Albion.

On a bitterly cold winter’s afternoon at St George’s Park, the match proved to be very similar to our first team’s defeat away at the Brewers just over a fortnight ago.

The Stags found themselves 2-0 down at half-time courtesy of goals by Liam Slade and Mirsa Sejdic, before Simon Heslop halved the deficit within a few minutes of the re-start.

Substitute Anthony Dwyer then had a goal disallowed, whilst Alex Fisher and Matt Rhead also went close on a couple of occasions, as Burton defended resolutely to record three points.

Our second-string will now be hoping to finally register a victory tomorrow night when they host Doncaster Rovers in their last Final Third Development League group game.

Despite a swirling wind making conditions for both teams, the Stags, wearing their change strip of royal blue, adjusted well in the early exchanges and made things difficult for their opponents.

The first chance of the game was for Mansfield and it fell to Fisher on six minutes.

The striker latched onto a beautifully weighted pass by Rhead, but despite being in a one-on-one with Scott Shearer, the Scottish custodian came out on top - pulling off a smart low save.

Although the Brewers had a couple of early corners, the Stags still looked dangerous whenever they pressed forward and again went close when Fisher flashed a teasing ball through the six-yard box, but despite Rhead being in a good position, a Burton defender got to the ball ahead of him and knocked it away from the danger zone.

Mansfield were then hit by a sucker-punch midway through the first half, as they fell behind against the run of play.

Slade, the Brewers’ right-back broke forward down the flank and shared a clever one-two with a team-minute with finishing with aplomb from the edge of the area to give his side an advantage.

Things could have got worse less than 60 seconds later, this time as Marcus Dinanca found himself with the goal at his mercy following a defence-splitting through ball, but the forward unleashed a stab-shot which clipped the outside of the post and went wide.

The Stags responded with a good period of pressure and broke past the home defence on a couple of occasions, but couldn’t make things pay.

On 26 minutes, the excellent Joe Fitzpatrick and winger Reggie Lambe linked up in a quick and clever sweeping move from left to right, and after sharing a one-two, Fitzpatrick skewed an effort over from about 10 yards, with the angle being against him.

Simon Heslop then let fly with a 25-yard strike a minute later, which bounced up and went narrowly wide of Shearer’s right-hand post.

However, just four minutes before half-time, Burton heaped further misery on the Stags by scoring a simple goal to double their lead.

Marcus Harness picked up the ball on the right flank and whipped a teasing cross towards the edge of the six-yard box, where Sedjic got in between Liam Marsden and Corbin Shires, and planted a firm header into the goal.

The Stags now faced an uphill battle to try and get back into the game, but hope of a comeback was restored within two minutes of the re-start as Lambe played a low ball through towards an advancing Heslop, who upon entering the area, opened up his body and placed the ball into the bottom-left corner of Shearer’s goal.

With the deficit halved, the visitors instantly began to look brighter and two minutes later, Lambe almost scored a sublime goal, but his powerful half-volley from 22 yards was expertly tipped over by a full-stretch Shearer.

Lambe went close again just shy of the hour mark as Mansfield continued to press forward, and it proved to be the Bermudan’s last real mark on the game, with teenager Dwyer coming on to replace him after 63 minutes.

Burton’s defence tired as the match wore on, which meant they began to defend deeper as the Stags applied plenty of pressure.

On 69 minutes, Fisher went close to an equaliser as he was in the right place at the right time to meet with Jamie McGuire’s back-post knockdown from Lee Beevers’ cross, but the frontman blazed over from around eight yards with the goal gaping.

The Stags thought they had grabbed a deserved equaliser with a quarter of an hour remaining when Dwyer emphatically finished from a couple of yards, but the youngster had strayed beyond the last defender in an attempt to reach Marsden’s quality delivery into the box, and the flag quickly went up for offside.

Five minutes later, Rhead was stopped in his tracks due to a linesman’s flag when he had got into a good goalscoring position, before the Stags spurned a glorious opening on 82 minutes as Dwyer got to the byline and smashed the ball across the face of goal towards Fisher, whose glancing flick goalwards was knocked off the line.

Dwyer was narrowly off target in the closing minutes as Burton held on to record a 2-1 victory, and pick up the three points on offer.

Team: Studer, Marsden, Beevers, Dempster (Slone), Shires, Fitzpatrick, Heslop, McGuire, Lambe (Dwyer), Fisher, Rhead.

Attendance: 13

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First team re-run as Stags reserves are pipped at Burton
chad.co.uk

In a game similar to Mansfield Town’s recent first team defeat at Burton Albion, the Stags’ reserve team failed to turn dominance into goals as they lost 2-1 at St George’s Park yesterday.

http://www.chad.co.uk/sport/mansfield-town/first-team-re-run-as-stags-reserves-are-pipped-at-burton-1-7073256

Trailing 2-0 at the break, Simon Heslop quickly pulled one back early in the second half, but the equaliser eluded them.

Manager Adam Murray said: “A few people said afterwards that it seems a general thing at the minute. We dominate for large periods of games but we are not getting the results.

“The boys were excellent and played some great stuff. We had the majority of the game and created numerous chances. Our work rate was top drawer.

“We had the heart rate monitors on them and we couldn’t have asked for any more.”

The game saw a return to action for centre half John Dempster. But, after a lengthy lay-off with a groin injury, he is still a long way short of a possible first team return.

“John has not played for six months and is trying to get fit at the minute,” said Murray. “He is also doing bits of coaching with the youth set-up as well.”

Murray was going to have an outing himself to boost his fitness but decided against it as he wanted to continue his plans to blood more youngsters this season.

He said: “There is a young lad I am trying to push forward at the minute, I don’t want to say his name. He has been excellent in the youth team this season.

“If I had gone in the team I would have been blocking his path and I didn’t want to do that - and he was the best player on the pitch.”

STAGS RESERVES: Studer, Marsden, Beevers, Dempster (Slone), Shires, Fitzpatrick, Heslop, McGuire, Lambe (Dwyer), Fisher, Rhead.

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