LOMAS ON STAGS: Crucial Easter ahead as frustrated Mansfield continue to look over their shoulders

Promotion to League One has produced some fantastic highlights for the club this season.

But the division has proved very cruel at times too, especially over the last three games as Stags have been edged out by three bigger clubs with superior budgets but have pushed them all the way each time.

Boss Nigel Clough talks about fine margins proving so costly and in Tuesday's 3-2 home defeat by Leyton Orient, it could have been a very different outcome had Aaron Lewis' shot not hit the bar when Stags were 1-0 ahead, had the referee given either of the penalties Mansfield believe they should have had, or if Charlie Kelman had not won it with a spectacular top class curling finish into the far top corner at 2-2.

It was a thrilling game and once again home fans gave their side the applause their side deserved at the end. No doubt they deserved at least a point.

Peterborough United's involvement in the EFL Trophy final this weekend meant their scheduled trip to the One Call Stadium had to be cancelled, leaving Stags now kicking their heels until Good Friday.

By the time Mansfield play again, Burton Albion will have played twice more.

Clough's former club are in the fourth and final relegation spot and are currently eight points adrift of Stags with a game in hand and six to play.

Of course there are also Wigan Athletic, Northampton Town and Bristol Rovers below Stags also looking over their shoulders at the relegation trapdoor.

The Brewers face Huddersfield at home this weekend and then play away at Exeter in the early Good Friday kick off before the Mansfield game.

How those games turn out will decide the pressure level on Stags when they step out at Rotherham soon afterwards.

Boss Nigel Clough had said he felt 50 points would be enough to be safe, so it is extra frustrating to have now been stalled on 47 for the last three games.

It would take Stags to keep on losing and a very strange set of results for the teams below them to drop Mansfield into that bottom four, but you really never know with football.

Thankfully it is Mansfield who have it very firmly in their own hands to secure their status and achieve the season's goal of survival and consolidation at this level.

So the current 10 day break once again is no bad thing as several shattered and injured players get the chance to recover ahead of a hugely important Easter.