Midfielder Stephen Quinn was ‘proud’ of the ‘grit’, ‘hunger’ and ‘professionalism’ he and his teammates showed in their dominant 4-0 away victory over third placed Carlisle United.
First-half goals from Ollie Clarke, Alfie Kilgour, Lucas Akins and Elliott Hewitt set Stags into an uncatchable lead before the break in Cumbria.
Quinn played a key role in assisting Clarke’s opener on 14 minutes by steering an impressive left-sided cross onto the head of the skipper just ten yards from goal.
The Irishman told iFollow Stags after the game: “We’ve been working on them [crosses] lately. Elliott [Hewitt] has been ramping up and down that right wing putting superb balls in over the last month or so. If you don’t put the ball in the box you don’t score.
“When [the ball] got set back to me from Jordan [Bowery], I just thought I’ll whip one in. We’ve been working on getting bodies into the box. I just put it in there and the skipper did the rest. That was a great header.”
The Mansfield number 16 was delighted with the way the team started the match and then showed resilience to control the play and protect their lead.
“It was probably a complete away performance,” he said. “To come out of the traps the way we did and show hunger and grit, we were just all over them tonight, [it] was exceptional.
“We just clicked I thought. We got the shape right, the boys were on the front foot, it was just pure clinical. I think that [display] was coming, having watched us all season we always create chances, we were just so much more clinical in that first half [today].
“To back Saturday’s win [over Gillingham] up I’m just so proud of them [the team]. We’ve had a two goal advantage this season and we’ve gone on to lose the game so you’ve got to stay focussed and I thought we were focussed. We applied ourselves so well.”
The experienced midfielder insisted that he and his teammates’ focus turns straight away to Mansfield’s next task in hand, an away trip to Tranmere on Saturday.
Quinn said: “[This result] just builds up our confidence. We won’t get carried away, the gaffer won’t let us get carried away.
“We are all just focused on Tranmere now. We never get too high and we never get too low.
“We’ll see how we go. [It’s] another tough game, another tough away day and hopefully the Stags’ fans can come out and give us another good backing on Saturday.”
