Battling display for Stags earns Mitch Rose reward
Mitch Rose was delighted to walk away with the sponsors' man of the match award yesterday after a display that boss Adam Murray described as superb in the 1-1 draw with Portsmouth.
“I’d like to hope that was one of my best displays in a Mansfield shirt with coming away with man of the match,”said the battling midfielder, who operated in a right-sided role.
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“But I don’t think it was about an individual performance today. It was about a collective performance as a team and how well the boys have done.
“These boys keep pushing me on every single day in training which helps me to be able to add something on a Saturday.
“Mentally this one was a really tough game, coming off the back of three defeats from which we felt we deserved a little bit more.”
Stags are now seven points shy of the play-off spots, but Rose said no one was giving up and the side just needed to play with confidence and enjoy the games left.
He said: “We’ve got nine games left so we have to just go out there and enjoy it. I think that’s what we did today – we just played free with confidence.
“To do that today after the last three games was unbelievable.
“We were just unfortunate with the goal we conceded today.
“I played a simple game. The manager gave me a disciplined role and I’d like to think I was able to do that today.
“We must just take it one game at a time now and not look beyond the next fixture.”
Chesterfield loanee Mani Dieseruvwe enjoyed an assist on his debut and Rose praised him, saying: “It’s always difficult coming in to a new set-up and he’s only been here two days, then coming straight in.
“It’s a great confidence booster for him.
“He is still very young and he just wants to go out and play games. He can take a lot of credit from that today.”