Mansfield Town

Manager Adam Murray was delighted with how our players dug in and showed exceptional spirit to record a priceless three points with a 2-1 victory over AFC Wimbledon at One Call Stadium.

After a goalless first half, the Stags went ahead through a deflected Lee Beevers shot, before Wimbledon drew level from the penalty spot through George Francombe.

The Dons then squandered a couple of good chances to take maximum points, before Rakish Bingham stole the show with a match-winning strike in the 87th minute.

“I’m emotionally exhausted,” said our boss. “We make it hard for ourselves and in the end, we dug in and the team-spirit was fantastic. 

“You saw from the first minute that the boys were trying to play at a high tempo and get the speed of the game going and create an atmosphere ourselves.

“Towards the end, [the players] were just gone – they were physically gone. Within a 4-4-2, the way we played takes a lot out of you, and we had to be dynamic. When we got to 70 minutes, physically we hit a brick wall and mentally that got affected as well. 

“We had a couple of lapses defensively towards the end which could have killed us, but the boys dug in. 

“The biggest word from me tonight is ‘team’. The lads came on and changed the game for us and it was a massive three points.

“We needed to freshen things up, so we did it all at once and it had the impact that we wanted it to.”

Murray continued: “Sometimes we’re still getting caught in how we’re playing. We over-play sometimes in the wrong areas and then play long when we should play short.

“We’ve got six weeks and four days to go [until the season finishes], and I am counting. Let’s get this over the line, let’s finish this job off and then we’ll build again and put an outfit together that we can all be proud of.”

On match-winner Bingham, our boss said: “I’m ‘over the moon’ for him. Rakish is someone that I’ve got a good relationship with and he’ll have a bright career. 

“He went out on loan earlier in the season for a certain purpose. It served him well, he’s come back in and is someone that I think will score goals as time goes on. The more experience he gets, he’ll get better and better.

“So I’m ‘over the moon’ for him and all credit goes to the boys, but lets not get carried away. It’s three points, nothing more, we move on, and the focus is on staying in the Football League.”