Keeper Scott Shearer saved two penalties as Mansfield Town fought back to beat Morecambe 2-1 at a wet and windy One Call Stadium – their second 2-1 come-from-behind win against the Shrimnpers in 12 days and their third successive victory.

Their home curse of conceding early goals struck again when Lee Collins’ header bounced off Krystian Pearce for Kevin Ellison to fire into the bottom corner after just 58 seconds.

But Matty Blair’s deflected 15th minute drive and Pearce’s bullet header from a Mal Benning corner nine minutes later gave them the advantage.

Then up stepped Shearer. He dived to parry Shaun Miller’s penalty 10 minutes before half-time when Ryan Tafazolli hauled back Andrew Fleming.

Six minutes from time Jack Thomas was controversially judged to have handled a Jamie Devitt cross and Shearer blocked substitute Paul Mullin’s penalty with his legs.

Afterwards Stags boss Adam Murray, sent from the dugout by the referee for protesting over the second penalty, praised Shearer and club analyst Sean O’Callaghan after the game.

“Excellent credit to Scott, but credit also has to go to Shaun and his team.

“Morecambe have had something like 11 penalties and Shaun had done his homework and told Scott the patterns and trends that have been happening. It worked. I keep going on about the one per cents and today it gave us a win.

“I just reacted in the way you react when you get a second penalty awarded against you.

“I didn’t say anything offensive. My body language told the story, but do people expect me to be happy?

“I felt all game we had little things that didn’t go our way. We were a bit frustrated with the inconsistency of the decisions but you take it on the chin.”

“I think it was phenomenal to be honest with you. You couldn’t write the script in terms of us conceding early goals (we are conceding). Something is written in the stars at the minute trying to make us concede even earlier.

“But from then I thought we were exceptional. We knew conditions would play a big part. They were two good, training ground goals that we were over the moon with.

“But the biggest thing that’s pleased me today is we got a lot thrown at us and we just kept coming back. We kept fighting and we kept clawing back. We never gave in.

“It was that never-say-die attitude that we love to see and it’s a
major part of our team.

“People were probably thinking what’s he doing playing with no centre forward for 20 minutes (at the end), but we had to get some energy in there and overload our half and try to catch them on the break as the first ball forward wasn’t reaching and it was just coming back.

“The first penalty, from the angle I’ve seen it from, it’s not too conclusive, but I think he’s (the referee) got that one right. The lads were saying it was a penalty.

“The second one, I think it has struck Jack’s arm, but how was he expected to get out the way of it? It’s one of them where he’s gone to block the cross and he can’t really do much more. It’s hit his arm but it wasn’t outstretched or anything. So I think that one was very harsh.

“We had everything we could thrown at us today so what spirit.”