Nigel Clough was delighted to see Mansfield end their winless run in Sky Bet League Two and reclaim a place among the play-off contenders with a 1-0 win at Rochdale.

Substitute George Maris scored the only goal of the game after 66 minutes when he connected with a sublime Hiram Boateng delivery, poking home from five yards to end a five-match run in the league without a win.

Stags manager Clough never felt threatened by the home side but was relieved to see Maris earn a welcome three points.

“We needed that after losing three out of four in the league, which has been very poor, and it was the manner in which we did it; it wasn’t backs-to-the-wall stuff, I thought we dominated the game generally throughout,” said Clough.

“We restricted Rochdale to one long-range shot that Christy Pym had to save and it was just a matter of whether we could get a goal or not.

“The idea was to get the ball down and play as much as we could, the pitch was lovely, it was the perfect surface for it and I thought we did it pretty well. We were a little sloppy at times in the first half but generally speaking it was a good, solid performance.

“We were a touch unlucky in the first half, there were a few bobbling around the six-yard box that could have dropped for us but didn’t quite, but we got our rewards in the end.”

Mansfield went closest to scoring in the first half when Dale goalkeeper Richard O’Donnell denied George Lapslie and Elliott Hewitt in quick succession.

Stephen Quinn flicked a header onto the roof of the net early in the second period before Maris netted the winner.

The home side had come into the game off the back of a home win against Salford in midweek but were always second best in this one.

Dale boss Jim Bentley said: “Obviously we’re very disappointed it’s a game we’ve lost after beating Salford here on Tuesday.

“When we came into these two home games I said it was important to win one of them and let’s not forget who we’re playing here, Salford and Mansfield are two of the favourites for the division and you could see that in terms of the players they had at their disposal.

“I’ve come across Nigel Clough a lot in the game and he does put good, solid outfits together. The power, know-how and experience in that group today, bringing on the likes of Jordan Bowery and John-Joe O’Toole – we were bringing on a 15-year-old (Oscar Kelly).

“We came up short, simple as that. We had a go, there were some strong performances and some that need to come up a little bit but overall I’m pleased to have got one win against two of the better sides in the division.”