Tuesday 9th August 2022
EFL Cup First Round
At Field Mill/One Call Stadium
Mansfield Town (0) 1
Oli Hawkins 56
Derby County (1) 2
Elliott Hewitt 30 OG, Tom Barkhuizen 69
Attendance: 6,861
Mansfield Town:
Pym, Gordon, O’Toole, Hawkins (Oates 73), Elliott, Mclaughlin (C) (Gale 87), Hartigan (Clarke 46), Lapslie, Quinn (Maris 46), Bowery (Sent off 81), Swan
Unused subs - Flinders, Harbottle, Boateng
Derby County:
Wildsmith, Forsyth (C), Cashin, Smith, Thompson, Sibley (Barkhuizen 63), Dobbin (Collins 73), Stearman, Oduroh, Rooney (Mendez-Laing 63), Knight (Hourihane 87)
Unused subs -Loach, Bird, Roberts, Robinson, Aghatise
But, the decision to scrap their matchday publication isn't universally popular amongst the Stags faithful... and to be honest I don't agree with it either. Last season saw a downsizing and apparent dumbing down of the content of the formerly award winning club journal, hence the lack of sales that has been used to excuse the demise of the programme.
Mansfield gave a very good account of themselves tonight and ran Derby close, but in the end, the League 1 side squeaked through to the second round, by the narrowest of margins.
The Stags almost scored first when Stephen Quinn fed the ball into the path of George Lapslie, but he smashed his shot against the underside of the Rams crossbar.
The visitors took the lead in the thirtieth minute, when Lewis Dobbin steered a Korey Smith delivery from the left hand side of the Stags area towards the hosts goal and the ball deflected past Christy Pym off of Elliott Hewitt.
The bitter sweet irony of the situation was that Hewitt had only been booked a few minutes before his own goal for fouling Dobbin when he had been through on goal. The Rams had appealed for Hewitt to be red-carded instead, but were probably quite happy that he was still in situ given the role that he played in their opening goal.
Inside the opening five minutes of the second half, Will Swan had a goal ruled out for being offside and Oli Hawkins rattled the bar with a header from a George Maris free-kick.
But the Stags pressure finally reaped reward in the fifty-sixth minute, when Hawkins took a cross from Kellan Gordon in his stride and drilled the ball past Joe Wildsmith.
Alas, Derby were ahead again after sixty-nine minutes, when two substitutes who'd only been on the pitch a few minutes combined to net what proved to be the winning goal when Nathaniel Mendez-Laing got free on the right and crossed to the back post where Tom Barkhuizen found the net with a close-range header.
In the eightieth minute the Stags had Jordan Bowery sent off, for a mistimed last ditch tackle on James Collins. It was, as the hosts manager Nigel Clough said after the game, "A genuine attempt to play the ball", but was also a foul nevertheless.
Hewitt almost levelled things up with two minutes remaining, but his effort was cleared off the line by Eiran Cashin and right at the death Collins was denied a third for the Rams by the Assistant Referee after he'd strayed offside.
FT: Mansfield Town 1 v Derby County 2
A decent night's entertainment all told.
The two sides will meet again on Tuesday 18th October in an EFL Trophy knockout group game, which will kick-off at the earlier time of 7PM
