Mansfield fall to two late Buxton goals

Mansfield made an attacking start with early possession around Buxton’s D and an early penalty corner which was not used to their advantage.

Seven minutes in a counter attack from Buxton put them 1-0 up when a ball hit across Mansfield’s D found a Buxton player who placed the ball in the bottom corner.

After the goal, the game evened up with both teams having some possession, yet only around the centre of the pitch.

It was on the 18th minute when Mansfield found an equaliser, just after both teams had wasted penalty corner opportunities.

Mansfield put together some good passes down the left wing to give Kyle Farquharson only the keeper to beat and putting the ball past his right hand side.

The first half finished 1-1 with both teams creating chances and each team having one other penalty corner each.

Buxton started the second half very strong and it only took them five minutes to retake the lead from a well worked short at the top of the D.

This triggered a surge from Mansfield who equalised only two minutes later. After winning a penalty corner which was stopped by a Buxton defender, Mansfield’s left back Jay Ward found the ball and squeezed it into the bottom left corner from an acute angle.

After the goal Buxton’s passing started to open up space on the pitch once again and it was not long before they scored to make it three goals in the game in the space of 10 minutes.

It was almost a replica of their second goal, with some good passes creating a shot from the left side to find the back of the goal.

To much surprise, Mansfield managed to find a rapid response once more straight from the centre spot with good work down the right side of the pitch, eventually creating a back post tap-in for Mansfield centre forward Jono Oldham.

With the score now at 3-3 the game started to settle with both teams having possession, shots at goal and penalty corners.

With 10 minutes to go, despite Mansfield starting to having more chances of taking the lead, Buxton found the goal once again with what started to seem a routine goal from the left side once more.

Unfortunately for Mansfield, they could not find an equaliser this time and with five minutes to go an on-target shot from Buxton was stopped by a Mansfield defender who purposely used his foot to give Buxton a penalty flick which they netted.