Mansfield 6 Tranmere 1

Last updated : 05 October 2002 By Footymad Previewer

The club with the worst home record in the Second Division at last got it right at Field Mill - thumping Rovers, the club with the worst away record in the Division, in an amazing second half transformation.

Mansfield had waited 429 minutes for a goal at home, but when Neil Mackenzie thumped in a 20 yard piledriver to cancel out Alex Hay's 13th minute breakthrough for Rovers the floodgates opened.

Six goals in 32 second half minutes sent Rovers sliding to their second 6-1 defeat in four days, their fifth successive away defeat, and ended Mansfield's grim run of five successive home defeats.

Veteran Scott Sellars struck the vital second goal in the 52nd minute just six minutes after Mackenzie's equaliser, touching in Mackenzie's deep cross at the far post.

Liam Lawrence rounded keeper Phil Whitehead to role in the killer third goal in the 61st minute before Iyseden Christie added a fourth in the 69th minute.

Colin Larkin's dipping 25-yard drive six minutes later was followed within two minutes by Christie's second, a fortunate deflection off Larkin's close-range shot.

It could have been worse for Rovers when Christian Edwards pulled down Christie inside the area six minutes from time, but the striker squandered the chance of a hat trick when he rolled the resulting penalty wide.

Rovers, who were reduced to ten men in the 67th minute when Simon Howarth lashed out at Craig Disley, had ironically totally dominated the first half.

Their early pressure was rewarded when Howarth headed down Mickey Mellon's corner for Hay to bundle in his first goal for the club .

Mansfield never threatened a first half equaliser and Hay should have completed a first half hat-trick when his close range finishwas scrambled off the line by Lawrence and then his glancing header brushed the woodwork.

Andy Parkinson also saw his fierce close-range drive somehow beaten away by the acrobatic Arjarn van Heusden six minutes before half time and Rovers were made to pay for missing those chances