Fast improving Cheltenham Town threw a spoke into Mansfield Town's hopes of keeping pace with the top three in Division Three while maintaining their own impressive improvement at the same time.
At the turn of the year the Robins were well and truly embroiled in a relegation battle amid fears that their hard-won Football League status would be lost after only five years.
Since then, however, new manager John Ward has organised the team into an efficient defensive unit that proved in this game that they can score goals as well.
It was an entertaining encounter with numerous chances for both sides, particularly in a rip-roaring second half that could have gone either way.
Cheltenham opened the scoring three minutes before half-time with a spectacular 25-yard strike from on-loan midfielder Karl Henry, his first for the club.
Damian Spencer made it 2-0 with a close range finish from a Martin Devaney cross on 61 minutes, but Mansfield pulled a goal back when Iyseden Christie ran on to a pass from Colin Larkin and beat goalkeeper Shane Higgs with a low finish.
Back came Cheltenham with Jamie Victory winning the ball in midfield and directing a through-pass for Paul Brayson to beat Kevin Pikington with an angled drive 20 minutes from time.
Still the drama was not over because Wayne Corden scored again for Mansfield in the 83rd minute after a cross from Liam Lawrence had been allowed to travel right through the Cheltenham defence.
The closing stages were frenetic with Devaney forcing a great save from Pilkington and Cheltenham substitute Kayode Odejayi hitting the crossbar.
At the other end, Larkin was denied the chance of a late equaliser by a brilliant save from Higgs.
The points were finally wrapped up two minutes into time added on when Odejayi reached a poor back pass ahead of Pilkington and rolled the ball into an empty net.
Robins manager Ward said: "I'm delighted with the result and delighted to get four goals as well.
"We have been playing tight and getting 0-0 results lately but I challenged the players to go out and play a bit and express themselves.
"They responded brilliantly although there is still a lot of hard work to do before we can compete with the leading sides like Mansfield on a regular basis.
Mansfield boss Keith Curle added: "I had a group of players out there who fought and gave everything when they were already 2-0 down.
"At 0-0 they had more to fight for and the really disappointing thing was that we did not see the true Mansfield until the last half-hour.
"With 20 minutes to go the players came out of their shell which left me wondering where they had been for the previous 70."