Mansfield Town 2 Oxford United 1

The joys of following the game via BBC on a mobile, live text is pretty good to be honest. Based on this limited coverage my take is - Yellows were hit hard early and fought back very hard but could not grab a draw, bound to happen sooner or later and that cushion at the top now proving useful - nuff said.

Report below from our Northern Correspondant - (c) "2 Sheds" - looks like Oxford started the game the way they finished against Eastbourne - only got found out this time.

"Bizarrely, I enjoyed that much more than the Wrexham game, despite the result.
Mansfield came out of the blocks like a train and looked a very good side - skillful and direct, lots of width and balls to feet, our defence were caught cold, and they'd already hit the post before getting their two goals. Clarke was unlucky with the first as he made a good save and a following up attacker reacted more quickly than the defence to pull off a decent angled lob. Oddly I can't remember the second at all, though I remember claims for offside earlier in the move but I reckon it was marginal (and hard to tell from behind the goal). The rest of the half was a bit back and forth - end to end stuff but with no clear chances until Cook hit the underside of the bar with a thumping swerving shot from outside the box after a good knock down from Constable (I think - it was up the other end).
The start of the second half was similar - then Beano scored a neatly taken goal, rather out of nowhere, after good work from Murray to set up a grandstand finish. The Mansfield goal was under siege from then on - we played with belief and aggression, the ball was scarcely in our half and we hit the bar again. Shame we didn't play that way earlier. Some tedious Mansfield timewasting was an irritation (Billy Turley ended up being the ball boy while the proper ball boys sat on their backsides in the corner of the pitch).
The referee was a bit of a homer - some bizarre free kicks that he seemed to give the wrong way, though he defused a couple of situations well and there was one very timely yellow card for a bad tackle by a Mansfield player that took the sting out of the situation before any handbags could kick off.
A good game of football between two good sides. Apart from our shoddy defence in the first 20 minutes and perhaps a lack of urgency in midfield for the first hour I can't really fault anyone. Constable, Cook and Green were superb and worked hard all evening, and I was impressed by Creighton, Batt, Foster and Kinniburgh at the back.
We'll play worse than that and win, I reckon. A draw wouldn't have been an unfair result but I was impressed with Mansfield (apart from Rob Duffy - ineffective and substituted).
The Oxford support - 650-odd - was superb (though it may have helped the acoustic being under a roof). We outsang the Mansfield fans for much of the game, apart from 5 minutes or so after the 2nd Mansfield goal. And for the first time since I was about 17 in the London Road I even started a chant (it went "...7, 8, 9, 10" - you had to be there)."