Defender Ryan Tafazolli was delighted to score his first goal for the club in today’s vital 2-1 victory over Newport County in Sky Bet League Two.
The 22-year-old headed us ahead on 28 minutes, before the visitors pulled one back after the break courtesy of Rene Howe.
Our team grabbed a decisive goal in the last minute of normal time, as Anthony Howell headed home from close-range lifting us up into 17th position in the league, eight points above the drop zone.
Despite being pleased with his first goal at One Call Stadium, Tafazolli is already focussing on our 11 remaining matches this season, in which he will be treating as cup finals.
“I flicked the cross on and thought I didn’t get enough power behind it,” said Tafazolli. “Luckily for me their goalkeeper has spilled it and I’ve scored my first ever goal for the Stags.
“I’ll definitely claim anything that comes my way. I was overdue a goal so it’s great to get my first one for the team.
“We’d rather get the three points than put in a good performance, because it is coming towards that time of the season now where we have 11 games left - 11 cup finals, and we need to go into every game aiming for three points.
“We are obviously the two sides that came up from the Conference [Premier] so we knew our style of football would be similar. We played against a few familiar faces in their team, but I’m just delighted we came out on top today.”
Meanwhile, the centre-back praised the rest of his team-mates and believes we deserved all three points.
“That’s what we’re all about - showing desire and persistence. We kept going until the end and we knew anything we put forward to ‘Rheady’ (Matt Rhead), the ball could drop anywhere.
“Luckily he has knocked down the ball to Anthony Howell, who has got the winner.
“We certainly showed our persistence today and all in all we deserved the three points for all our efforts.
“Like I said, we have 11 cup finals left now and we need to give everything we have got in each game.”
