Birthday boy Tommy Mooney scored his first goal for United to beat Mansfield 1-0 at the KasStad this evening. Mooney was on the end of an excellent ROS Chris Hackett cross after 36 minutes to slot the ball past Kevin Pilkington. Leo Roget was sent off four minutes into the second half, for a foul on the lively Derek Asamoah, but this seemed to galvanise United, who more than held their own until the numbers were evened up following Lee Williamson’s second yellow card, both for fouls on Hackett. In a late spell of Stags’ pressure Chris Tardif made a flying save from Neil MacKenzie, and then Dave Mackay headed brilliantly off the line to preserve Oxford’s lead.

Graham Rix only made one change from the side that lost at Boston, replacing the ineffective Danny Brown with Terry Parker. At half-time Brown was brought on for Paul Wanless. Following Roget’s dismissal Lee Molyneaux was brought on for his Oxford debut to shore up the defence, Parker being the player who made way for him. With just a few minutes remaining Hackett went off, replaced by Steve Basham.

The referee was Trevor Parkes, who last season was in charge of our games at Kidderminster and Colchester, and the home clash with Doncaster. Parkes had a poor game, not helped particularly by his assistants. In addition to sending off Roget with a straight red, he also booked him for a poor lunge in the first half. He also showed yellow cards to Brown, for a fairly innocuous challenge, Hackett for diving after the linesman had awarded Oxford a penalty, and Tardif for timewasting at a goalkick. The attendance was a meagre 5,029, which doesn’t bode particularly well, considering. We hope that we will be provided with a match report tomorrow.