Louis Reed sensed his moment and took it to stun Burnley and send League One Mansfield into the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time in 51 years.
The Stags’ captain stepped up when Mansfield won a free-kick 25 yards out with 10 minutes remaining at Turf Moor, sending the ball into the top corner to earn the visitors a memorable 2-1 victory.
Reed has only scored four goals this season, with three of them coming in the last two rounds of the cup.
He told the BBC: “As soon as it left my boot I felt it going in. I have been working on them throughout the week. The lads said, ‘This is your moment, go and take it’. Thankfully, I did.”
First-team coach Andy Garner conducted media duties, with boss Nigel Clough making a swift departure, and he admitted Reed surprised him with the quality of his strike.
“He has been practising quite a lot and we’ve given him a bit of stick because usually, and I’m not being funny, it’s over the bar, nine out of 10 times it’ll be over the bar,” said Garner.
“I think it was a good position, maybe it’s hard for a keeper, you can go both ways, but when you see the net bulge, I couldn’t believe it. I’m so happy for him because I thought he was outstanding today, I thought he was man of the match by a country mile.”
Burnley took the lead in the 21st minute through Josh Laurent but spurned three other golden chances and they were made to pay in the second half, with Rhys Oates heading in the equaliser eight minutes after the break.
From then on Mansfield were the better side, with Garner saying: “We had a few words at half-time and we needed to be a little bit better than we were in the first half.
“Maybe because we were coming to a Premier League club but we gave the ball away far too much. Nothing to fear, we said ‘go and enjoy the second half and get back into the game’, and that’s exactly what they did. Fantastic result for us.”
The Stags have not been this far in the FA Cup since 1975, and Garner added: “That’s massive isn’t it, it’s another record that we’ve broken. This is a fantastic competition, it’s always been a fantastic competition, and for Mansfield Town to get into this position is an incredible achievement.”
Boos from the Burnley fans greeted the final whistle, with the positivity of Wednesday’s Premier League victory over Crystal Palace swiftly dissipating.
Boss Scott Parker defended his decision to make nine changes, saying: “I don’t think the changes were the issue.
“The game should be practically out of sight first half, we missed glorious opportunities. Second half, really poor. We started poor, gave them something to hold on to and from that point never really affected anything. Just a really poor result.”
The heat will be back on Parker, while chairman Alan Pace used his programme notes to address the anger caused by his recent comments about the attitude of some Burnley fans.
“When you come off the back of a result that we had in midweek, you probably dampen the noise around the place a little bit,” said Parker.
“You come into this game wanting to get a result and keep that momentum and we’ve just applied that noise even more now, 10 fold, and rightly so.”
