Forest Green Rovers ended their Central League campaign with a strong performance as they beat Plymouth Argyle 2-1 away from home.

Olly Mehew, who was a constant threat for FGR, levelled five minutes before half time after Cameron Sangster netted for Plymouth in the eighth minute.

Forest Green were able to snatch all three points at the death when Mark Roberts popped up at the back post to head home a corner and reward a long season for the Academy.

“I thought everyone was absolutely outstanding today,” said academy manager Scott Bartlett.

“We were patched up, we had about eight defenders that we had to get some minutes into and I thought everyone did really well and we were the better team throughout.

“Olly and I had words six to eight weeks ago and he has shown a really good reaction to that and gone out on loan to Evesham and done well.

“He has a lot of ability in him and took his goal well.”

It took less than 10 minutes for the hosts to take the lead at Home Park as FGR made a slow start to proceedings.

A good ball in from the left was met by Billy Craske in the area and Declan Lehmann, despite getting a hand to it, was unlucky to watch the ball drop into the bottom corner following his attempted block.

FGR grew into the game and Mehew was their main threat as he was denied on several occasions by some last-ditch defending.

However, his chance came in the 40th minute as he broke down the left, set away by Alfie Madden, and drove into the area before finish sublimely across the keeper into the top corner to level the scores going into the break.

With the rain falling heavily in the second half, chances were at a premium but Forest Green looked the stronger side in the final 20 minutes.

With the game stretched, in the 76th minute Jay Malshanskyj had the clearest opportunity to give the visitors the lead when he was played through by Sam Hendy but his shot was well saved by Luke McCormick in the Plymouth goal.

However, it was the away side that took all the points when a corner in the 90th minute was flicked on at the near post by under 18s manager Chris Barker, Roberts was on hand to head home on the line.

“Barks can still play can’t he?” added Bartlett.

“I told him to go up and he waved me away but he went up anyway and flicked it on for the goal and the boys probably see a different side to him when he is coaching out there.

“For us, we wouldn’t play a member of the coaching staff over one of our lads unless we felt it was really beneficial and we thought it was.

“I probably decided with 20 minutes to go I was going to try and give these boys 90 minutes and then rest them for the weekend and play the younger ones Saturday away at Cardiff.

“We play Dagenham again on Monday so the ones that played today will play then.

“We’ve got a fixture pile up, we don’t really want to be playing on the same day as our first team, we want to be at Yeovil watching them but it was great today and we got our just rewards."