It’s been another thrilling, gruelling, twist-ridden League Two season. Notts County and Yeovil have dropped out of the Football League; Lincoln City, Bury and MK Dons have all secured automatic promotion. We now turn out attention to the play-offs, which are always good fun – unless your team is participating, of course.

Our first offering is a fascinating tie between Newport and Mansfield – two sides who have enjoyed very different seasons.

The Stags were battling for automatic promotion all season long, but three consecutive defeats to finish their campaign—most pertinently a crushing final day blow at Stadium MK—saw them slip out of contention at the eleventh hour. Somehow, David Flitcroft’s men will have to pick themselves up for this play-off push, but as we’ve seen so often in the past, that is astonishingly difficult.

And then we have Newport, who qualified for the play-offs in a vastly contrasting way.

Michael Flynn’s side were 13th in the table, eight points off the top seven as recently as March 12th, but a 10-match unbeaten run saw them blitz into the play-offs at the perfect time.

No side has picked up more home points than Newport this season, and it’s hard to see Mansfield getting any sort of result at Rodney Parade on Thursday.

Joe Day has kept 10 clean sheets in their last 12 at home—which is an absolutely insane record in such a competitive league—which is why I’m backing a Newport victory.

Mansfield are dispirited and war-torn, making this the perfect time for rampant Newport to punish them. The visitors have lost five of their last eight away games, making 13/8 a very backable price for this first-leg.

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Newport - 2pts @ 13/8