Mansfield Town coach Andy Garner delighted as Stags avoid banana skin against bottom club

Worrying moments for Stags as Scunthorpe take the lead against the run of play. Photo by Chris Holloway / The Bigger Picture.media

And first team coach Andy Garner admitted: “We had to make sure we were right at 3pm.

“Playing against bottom of the league but we know Keith Hill very well from over the years and we knew he'd make it hard for us today.

READ THE FULL MATCH REPORT

“You could take things too casually against bottom of the league, but we've worked hard all week and put it into practice today.

“We started well but they scored from the penalty. Then we showed good character to come back and I think we thoroughly deserved the win.

“We were outstanding in midfield. Reverting back to 4-5-1, we have a lot of quality in there and we trust them all. It enables us to get it down and play.

“Ollie Clarke was fantastic today as he has been for the last couple of games.”

It was a fifth win in a row after a dreadful spell of 14 games without victory and Garner said: “We don't want to go back to how it was a month ago – that was probably one of the worst times I've had in football to be quite honest.

“We've tried to put it right and once you get that first win you get a bit of confidence and belief back. Now we've taken it to the fifth win and we look confident now.

“We have two really hard games coming up so we will see where we are after next Saturday.”