Melbourne Dynamo 3-0 Mansfield Hosiery Mills

Clinical finishing sees us grab a 7th win in 8 games.

After last weeks draw vs Arnold Town, it was yet another home game for the lads, this time Mansfield Hoisery Mills were the visitors. We needed an injury time equaliser from Elliott Dawson in the reverse fixture back in October.

Into the side came Hughes, Muir and Withers for Jones, Goodband and Brown. Just like the previous week, Dynamo started strongly and were ahead inside the first 5 minutes. Gosling pressed high and won the ball back for Nkrumah to avoid the oncoming defender and smash it past the keeper from the edge of the box for 1-0. 5 mins of further pressure followed but the 2nd goal wouldn’t come. The hosts started to get a foothold in the game and were finding feet with ease. Their 4-4-2 diamond formation with lads interchanging certainly caused Dynamo problems and it needed Cox to be quick off his line to deny them an equaliser. 1-0 at the break, but the management team far from happy with how the game was going.

The first 15 minutes of the second period were again a bit short on quality. Top scorer Goodband was introduced on the hour mark for Bickerton and it took just 5 minutes for him to make an impression. Nkrumah did well in the middle of the park to set him free and he squared the opposition full back up, hit a low drive across the keeper and into the side netting for 2-0. Brown replaced Hughes in the second change of the afternoon. It was game-set-match on 75 minutes, as a bouncing ball was helped forward and Nkrumah raced clear to fire a low shot under the keeper for his 4th goal in his last 2 appearances. Gorman came in for Muir to sure up the midfield and see the game out.

Mansfield to their credit kept plugging away and made it a difficult game - number 9 especially was a handful all afternoon.

The harsh words at half time seemed to work as the second half was a much better performance and much more in control than the first half. It’s another 3 points to add to the tally and takes us into the final 5 games of the season to be played within 14 days, that starts this Saturday with a trip to Bakewell Town.