Ollie Clarke ‘closed his eyes and smashed it’ for stunning goal in Mansfield win

First-team coach Andy Garner joked that he thought Ollie Clarke might have just “closed his eyes and smashed it” after the midfielder’s spectacular volley at Doncaster sent Mansfield on the way to picking up their first away points of the season.

Clarke opened the scoring on the quarter-hour mark and, after Lee Tomlin levelled from the penalty spot in first-half stoppage time, further efforts from George Maris and Lucas Akins secured a 3-1 victory.

It was Clarke’s opening effort, though, that everybody was still purring about at the final whistle.

Garner said: “I don’t think he’ll ever hit another one as sweet as that. Sometimes, with Ollie, they can go anywhere, but it was a fantastic strike.

“I’ll have to ask him if he meant it or not, because I’m not sure whether it was a case of him just closing his eyes and smashing it.”

Garner added that he felt the Stags’ industry was the key to ending a run of three successive losses on the road.

“It was a fantastic result,” he said. “With our away record this season… to come here and put on that sort of performance against a team who were unbeaten was absolutely incredible.

“The players worked their socks off and there were a few tired legs in the dressing room afterwards. We talked in the week about how far we were off what we expect of the players at Sutton last weekend in terms of work rate and desire and we are a good team but you have to put in the work at this level or you get beaten.

“It was also a very difficult decision to choose who we played for this match because we have 17 or 18 players who could all start, but the 3-1 result proved we got it right.”

Doncaster boss Gary McSheffrey was unhappy with his side’s display and accused certain players of shirking responsibility.

He said: “We have to take it on the chin, because they were better than us individually and collectively and deserved to win the game. They were quicker than us to the ball and caused us all sorts of problems.

“We started the game better than any match this season with a couple of corners, but then it fizzled out. We also started the second half well but they had more fight than us throughout the game and that was the biggest disappointment.

“You need desire and courage on the ball and it was missing. We were just too way off it, especially in possession, including our full-backs and the midfielders.

“It just seemed to be a knock-on effect and too many shirked the responsibility to get us playing.”