Stephen McLaughlin praises Mansfield Town players’ mentality as they went on to win comfortably at Gillingham, despite a missed penalty

Stags were 1-0 up when Lucas Akins saw his spot kick saved and the home fans roar into life.

But four minutes later it was 2-0 and Gillingham never looked like coming back from that.

“I thought we dealt with it very well and it was a great away performance,” said McLaughlin.

“No heads dropped when we missed the penalty. It speaks a lot about the boys. We are a lot more mature now. We don't let things fester out.

“Our reaction was straight away we were straight back on it, and we quickly got the goal and played very well.

“We had to deal with a lot of long balls and stuff and I think we dealt with them, picked up the seconds, and also played our football as well.

“We scored two very good goals and won a penalty.

“The boys worked extremely hard in the middle of the field. We got the ball on the floor, played it wide and got at them, creating good opportunities to score.”

He added: “The gaffer says all the time we want to play the same away from home as we play at home – and I thought we did that in spells today.

“Obviously it's a tough place to come to, but we stood up to it more often then not.

“At one stage in the first half they broke on us two v one and within a couple of seconds it was five v two. That's the mentality this group has – even the lads on the bench.

“You saw Jordan Bowery come on and you'd think he'd played the full game – he was straight into it. He caused carnage when he came on and killed the game off a wee bit which just gave the defenders a bit of breathing space when he was keeping it. It was invaluable.”

McLaughlin also had high praise for lone striker Akins, who netted the opener and covered every blade of grass.

“He has been unbelievable up there on his own - the hold-up play he has and he's bringing Laps (George Lapslie) into the game and bringing central midfielders into it,” he said.

“When Lucas gets hold of it, it allows the likes of myself to push forward.

“It goes unnoticed sometimes but his work rate today was amazing. Without him up front there today we could have struggled.”