Matlock complete encouraging pre-season with draw against Mansfield Town
Adam Clayton was again delighted with his Matlock Town side’s efforts as their pre-season campaign ended with a draw against Mansfield Town on Tuesday.
It meant the Gladiators had played three games against strong EFL sides during the summer without defeat, and they’ll go into the new NPL Division One East campaign full of confidence when it gets under way in just over a week’s time.
Clayton felt Matlock gave as good as they got for much of Tuesday’s game, Declan Eratt-Thompson’s early opener cancelled out by George Maris’s equaliser late in the first-half and Diego De Girolamo hitting the post in the second period.
Clayton said: “It was a really good night’s work. I challenged the players to not only do what they did against Chesterfield and Derby which was to defend resolutely and be compact and disciplined, but also whether we could bring parts of what we did on Saturday [in the 4-1 win at Belper Town] in possession, which is tough and especially against professional sides,
"But we did that plenty tonight and did lots of our own stuff, as well as working hard off the ball and being solid, and you could see they were working really hard to get through us and around us.
"We managed to get our stamp on the game in more ways than we had done against Chesterfield and Derby as we’ve obviously had more sessions and we wanted to get in their half and play our stuff which we did on numerous occasions.”
Attention now turns to the league opener against Bradford (Park Avenue) on August 9 and Clayton feels his side is more or less ready to go.
He said: “I think we’re very close squad-wise. We did the majority of our business really early and I feel we’ve done really well on that front.
"We acted swiftly and got the right players in and I think you can see from the performances that the buy-in from the lads has been superb in terms of what we want from them.
"They’ve been full of hard work, full of effort and full of quality in large periods. Of course the quality will go up and down, that’s football, but the team spirit and togetherness and application have been there from the start which is really pleasing.”
Matlock began Tuesday’s game strongly and went in front inside 90 seconds. Conor Washington and De Girolamo both had bites at the cherry before being crowded out but the ball was knocked back to new signing Eratt-Thompson who produced a delightful finish with the outside of his right foot from the edge of the penalty area.
Mansfield responded with Jakub Kruszynski’s shot being well blocked by keeper Myles Boney, the same player then putting the ball wide when set up by Nathan Moriah-Welsh who had gone around Boney before squaring the ball across.
Liam Bolton also forced Boney into a save before the equaliser came on 37 minutes when Maris was on hand to net from Keanu Baccus’s low cross.
Perhaps the closest either side came to a winner was on 59 minutes when De Girolamo worked space for himself in the penalty area and fired his effort low against the inside of the far post and the ball trickled along the goal line before being cleared.
Mansfield had the better moments late on, Jordan Bowery firing just wide with 17 minutes to go and then Boney making a fine save to deny Frazer Blake-Tracy.
Kruszynski also went close again in the dying stages but ultimately the spoils were shared as both sides now focus turn their attention to competitive football.
Matlock: Boney (Parker 78), Mbayo, Milambo, Bachirou, Ravenhill, Oglesby, Thompson, Sault (Rodriguez 82), Degirolamo (Fry 88), Washington (Giles 69), Wilson (Murray 66). Not used: Wiley, Gibson.
Mansfield: Mason, Flanagan, Bowery (Kokkinos 77), Blake-Tracy, Baccus (Hartmann 82), Lewis, Maris (Abdullah 77), Moriah-Welsh (Taylor 77), McLaughlin (Wauchope 82), Kruszynski, Bolton (Anderson 46). Not used: Nunez.
Att: 1,414