Goalscorer James Baxendale explains importance of momentum for Mansfield Town

The Stags won 2-0 at Rainworth Miners Welfare with Baxendale netting an early opener before Adi Yussuf rounded off the win in the second-half.

And midfielder Baxendale was glad to get his first game of the summer under his belt.

He said: “It was good to get out there. It was quite a warm day so tough at times but we worked on what we’d practised during the week and it was a productive game for us.

“The team’s quite fit so it’s about trying to maintain that as well as work on the patterns of play we’ve looked at in training to see what works.

“We’ll gradually build the intensity as we get closer to the season and with lots of good opponents coming up we want to build some good momentum to take into the Newport game on the opening day.”

On his goal, Baxedale added: “Greeny did some good work to get into the box and I just hung around in case the ball fell to me which it did and I managed to squeeze it in.