Mansfield Town 9 Harrogate Town 2: Sulphurites boss opts against 'battering' players after humiliating loss

The Sulphurites were 5-0 down by half-time as they slipped to their heaviest-ever League Two loss against their title-chasing hosts, who didn’t relent after the interval.

As if such a result wasn’t shocking enough in its own right, it came completely out of the blue, with Town having headed into the game in superb form and occupying a play-off spot after winning seven of their previous 10 league matches and losing just once in 11 outings.

Indeed, they also began the night boasting one of the better defensive records in the division.

Thus, given what he has seen from them in recent months, and due to him not wanting to undermine confidence moving forward, Weaver insisted that he had no inclination to “batter” his charges either publicly or within the confines of the away changing room.

"I’m a bit sore at the moment, I have to say that I didn’t see that coming,” he said. “We were probably the worst form of ourselves on the ball, gift-wrapped several goals and obviously we lacked intensity, which is the element that hurts.

"But I’m not going to batter them, because the lads have been absolutely magnificent for the football club for several months.

“They have been absolutely phenomenal and what I don’t want to do is undermine people’s confidence. There’s no way I was going to absolutely go after them in the changing room. I don’t think that after all the magnificent performances they have produced over months now that they deserve that as men, they are good people.

"It may perturb some people that I didn’t get after them, and there is a little bit of fire in my belly that we weren’t more resolute second half and lay a glove because you’d like to think that we could be a bit more intense, certainly in the defensive third.

"But, in terms of what they have done for this football club in terms of entertainment and resilience over several months now, they don’t deserve to be whacked for six verbally by me. I’ve got respect for every single one of them, but what I will be looking for is a reaction, and a positive one at that, no sulking.”

Town fell behind with 13 minutes on the clock, Lucas Akins converting from the penalty spot after Derrick Abu had been adjudged to have pulled the shirt of Bailey Cargill.

Hiram Boateng then struck in the 20th and 30th minutes to put Mansfield in full control, before Tom Nichols effectively ended the game as a contest with 11 minutes of the opening period remaining.

Worse was to come for the Sulphurites, with Davis Keillor-Dunn adding to the Stags’ tally, leaving visiting stopper James Belshaw to pick the ball out of the back of his net for the fifth time in the space of just 26 minutes.

Any notion that Nigel Clough’s men might take their foot off the gas after the interval with the match already won was quickly blown away as Boateng completed his hat-trick within four minutes of the restart.

A remarkable night of football then took another twist, with Town somehow registering twice in the space of a minute through George Thomson and Abraham Odoh, reducing the deficit slightly at 6-2.

But the Stags were not finished yet, and the score-line progressed from emphatic to embarrassing as Akins grabbed his second before substitute Will Swann’s late brace rounded off a galling evening for Harrogate.

On precisely what went wrong, Weaver added: "On the one hand, you have got to give credit to really strong opposition. I think that Mansfield were fantastic on the night in every aspect.

"Their intensity, their ability to play through the lines, the execution of their finishes, they were a level above.

"We were dealt a harsh lesson, but I’m very disappointed that we didn’t learn from the first three goals.

"We were too spaced out and it was too easy to play against us. With the shape, we were getting after them and getting picked off at times and in our defensive third we lacked that bite. It was almost as if we were petrified after going 4-0 down.

"Maybe there was naivety from me thinking that we could go toe-to-toe with a top team like Mansfield, but I do believe in the players.”

Defeat sees Town drop out of the play-offs and slip one place to eighth, though they are level on points with Notts County in seventh.