Pulling the Strings

First came the flair, as two Graham Carey goals capped off a first half full of flowing moves and attacking intent. Man-of-the-match Carey's dangerous delivery from a free-kick evaded everyone and found the far corner on 19 minutes, before an outstanding individual goal from the Irishman five minutes later.

Then came the grittiness, fending off the expected, direct response from the Stags in the second half that Argyle resolutely saw off. Derek knows the importance of balancing qualities like that in a squad at this level, as doing so ensured a first home win of the campaign for the Greens.

"Outstanding, both the first half and the second half," said Adams in his side's performance. "The first half: a real passing performance. The second half: we had to defend a lot of high balls. In both halves, we were by far the better side.

"It was just an accomplished first-half performance; the way we took the ball and moved it and created openings. The second half became a bit messy. They threw in a lot of seven-foot players and we had to deal with that.

"To play the way we did, in the first half and second half - you need to do that in this league. There's teams that play football, and there's teams that play the ball forward depending on what game they're playing. Mansfield can do both, and we dealt well with both sides of the game."

Putting a stuttering start to the 2016-17 season firmly behind them, the Greens battled the wind and rain at Home Park to record consecutive victories in the space of a week.

"I think both teams actually played better against the wind," said Adams. "It was quite windy out there, but to come away 2-0 [against] a team that were unbeaten on seven points - it's a very good win for us.

"We're just moving on from the first game of the season. We've come away here today with three points. We went away to Notts County on Tuesday and won the three points there, as well."