Steve McLaughlin scored his eighth goal of the season to restore Mansfield’s two-goal cushion in the tieMansfield Town booked their place in the League Two play-off final at Wembley as they won at Northampton to complete a 3-1 aggregate victory.Stags left-back Steve McLaughlin’s controversial first-half winner completed a disappointing 11 days for the Cobblers, after being dramatically denied automatic promotion.Nigel Clough’s Stags meet the winners of Thursday’s Port Vale-Swindon tie.Josh Eppiah came closest to scoring for Jon Brady’s Cobblers on the night.But the on-loan Leicester City striker’s header was brilliantly saved by Mansfield’s on-loan Manchester United keeper Nathan Bishop inside the first minute of the match.The Cobblers can also point to what might have happened had Mansfield midfielder Kieran Wallace received more than just a yellow card for a wild, late second-half challenge on Eppiah.However, the hosts’ real grievance had been the manner of how the game was settled by the only goal of the night.The Cobblers were two goals behind after 32 minutes of the first leg on Sunday and, although Ali Kolki’s second-half goal halved that first-leg deficit, they were again back to two down in the tie after 32 minutes of the second leg too, as right-back Elliott Hewitt set up left-back McLaughlin.But the controversy came as Lucas Akins steered a pass through the inside-right channel and a clearly offside Stephen Quinn was first to respond. Quinn then stopped and was overtaken by fast-moving full-back Hewitt from an onside position, who reached the ball first and squared… Click below to read the full story from BBC Sport
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