Stevenage 0
Mansfield Town 1
FA Cup (2nd Round)

Match report written by Neil Metcalfe, The Comet

There was plenty of improvements and plenty to be positive about but there was one stark fact come the final whistle - Stevenage were out of the FA Cup.

The Mansfield Town winner in the 1-0 success came three minutes into the second period with a really well-hit shot from Stephen McLaughlin.

And in terms of efforts and possession and territory, it was probably undeserved.

But they took that one chance when it came and then produced a textbook example of seeing the game out.

And that fact was another example that threw the long-running problems Stevenage have of finding a goal into sharp relief.

There were two changes from the draw with Leyton Orient, Jamie Reid and Nick Freeman dropping to the bench to be replaced by Jake Young and Elliott List.

After the mumbles and grumbles of one week earlier, the first half was enough to warm the coldest of hearts.

From the first minute Stevenage came out to play, pressing hard and pinning Mansfield back for the majority of the first 45.

The Stags only sniffs of goal came from Lucas Akins, when he suddenly skipped past Murphy Cooper only to be shepherded away by Nathan Thompson, and a tame shot from distance by Ben Waine.

Other than that, all the action came at the other end.

And to the relief of many, there were attempts from the white-shirted hosts.

Most fell to Dan Kemp, the closest of which was hacked off the line by Baily Cargill after the Stevenage's man had seen Christy Pym stop his first shot.

The former Boro loanee also had to react quickest to a slightly deflected effort from the edge of the box by Kemp.

Boro's number 10 had earlier put an effort just wide while Young and Jordan Roberts were also off target with efforts that flew high over the top.

There were plenty of other good attacking movement and clever passing, it was just missing the goal, and so it was a surprise that Mansfield didn't make any personnel changes at the interval.

They would have been given a blasting by Nigel Clough though and whatever was said clearly worked.

An early corner brought a looping header from Cargill that Cooper needed to push behind and from that set-piece, they scored.

Annoyingly it looked as if Boro had smuggled the ball out of the box and away from danger but an instinctive volley by McLaughlin flew beyond the Boro keeper for an undeserved lead.

Stevenage did respond, Young and Kemp combined to win the ball on the byline but the cross was pushed away from the feet of List by Pym.

The keeper then made a smart save to push a deftly hit, bending effort from Harvey White.

The resulting corner was then flicked right across the face of goal by Nathan Thompson.

But the intensity of Boro's play naturally began to fade and the Stags were good at breaking the game up, slowing it down without causing too many problems.

The one chance they had was sent horribly wide by Jordan Bowery, although the link-up play with Hiram Boateng was good.

Substitutions were needed for Boro, just to reinvigorate things, and four of them came at once with 16 minutes to go.

The final one was a further seven minutes behind, and intriguingly none of them were Northern Ireland international Reid, but Mansfield were continuing to do a fine job of seeing the game out, and killing off any chance of a Stevenage revival.

Seven added minutes came but bar a couple of balls into the box, there was no chance of keeping Stevenage's cup hopes alive.