Steve Evans hailed his players and said Stevenage's win at Tranmere Rovers should have been wrapped up a lot earlier than it was.

Jordan Roberts got the winner six minutes from time in the 2-1 success but for the first 45 minutes, Boro were outstanding and rightfully disappointed with just a 1-0 lead through a Jake Reeves goal.

The boss said: "In fairness, we should have been out of sight in the first half. The performance was fantastic.

"We won every second ball, we made chances and the goalkeeper has had three or four saves.

"But we got the goal and we were in total command.

"We came out in the second half and I think there was a bit of nervousness.

"Teams we build go and get the second but it seemed like some of them thought ‘don’t concede’.

"They equalised and for 10 minutes they took over and we had to grind our way back into the game.

"But we always looked a threat, especially from set-plays, and the result was actually a bit harsh on us. We could have had three or four."

The winner came from a free-kick that was played into the box and headed back across by skipper Carl Piergianni for Roberts to tuck away at the back post.

That was something that has been practiced time and time again revealed the boss.

He said: "We’ve worked a lot on set-pieces in pre-season and from every one, we thought it would be a goal.

"It’s a great free-kick in from [Jake Reeves]. It is something we’ve done 25,000 times on the training ground in the last 10 days.

"It was a brilliant header back by Carl and it could have been put in by three or four of them.

"There wasn’t any stage of that game where I thought we would lose the game.

"After the equaliser I did think was it going to be a game where we only got a point and we head back down the road thinking it’s a tough place to go.

"But you look back on the first half we should have been done and dusted.

"We had some big performances but we’re going to need some big performances."

But Evans won't allow his players to get too carried away with the result.

He said: "It'll be nice and quiet on the coach. That's what happens when you have standards and objectives for the season.

"There'll be no singing and dancing on the coach. We'll analyse the performances and the stats and then the boys will be back in on Monday and we'll get back on the training ground."