Morecambe 1-3 Mansfield: Rose double downs Shrimps

Mansfield maintained their quest for a League Two play-off spot with a 3-1 victory over struggling Morecambe at the Globe Arena.

Danny Rose scored twice for the Stags to inflict a sixth successive defeat on the home side.

Rose gave the Stags the lead after four minutes when he drilled a low shot past Barry Roche from 12 yards out.

The Shrimps were level three minutes later after a mistake in the Mansfield defence. Roche's long clearance was not dealt with by Rhys Bennett and Paul Mullin took advantage to run on goal and stroke the ball calmly past the helpless Jake Kean.

The visitors then took advantage of some sloppy defending at the other end to regain the lead after 33 minutes when Rose took advantage of a mistake from Michael Rose to beat Roche from 12 yards as the ball somehow squirmed under the keeper's body.

The Stags then added a third after 39 minutes through another swift counter attack.

Shaquile Coulthirst did well to hold the ball up and delivered the perfect pass for Ben Whiteman to slide the ball into the bottom right hand corner of the Morecambe goal from the edge of the area.

The Shrimps started the second half sharply with Aaron Wildig forcing Kean into a good save just seconds after the restart.

From there Mansfield were happy to soak up pressure and hit Morecambe on the break, with Danny Rose denied his hat-trick by a superb save from Roche with 51 minutes gone.