Nigel Adkins praised the collective efforts of his Tranmere team after they recorded their first league victory of the season with a 1-0 win over Walsall at Prenton Park.
Omari Patrick’s first league goal for the club since joining in the summer was enough to extend Rovers’ unbeaten start to three games and bring an end to the Saddlers’ 100 per cent record.
It was the visitors who started the brightest and could have taken the lead in the fifth minute when Jamille Matt’s penalty was well saved by Luke McGee after the striker had been pulled down in the box.
Less than 10 minutes later they were made to pay when Patrick was on the spot to smash the ball home from 12 yards after the visitors failed to clear the danger from a free-kick.
Before the break Walsall could have drawn level with Charlie Lakin and Conner Barrett coming close.
Matt almost made amends for his penalty miss late on, only to see his header cleared off the line, but Rovers held out thanks to their third clean sheet of the season to take the points.
Tranmere boss Adkins said: “The lads were great, the fans were great, as were all of the staff and everybody involved today.
“That was a tough game and you could see Walsall wanted to come here and bully and intimidate, but they can play football too and they’re going to be a massive force this season.
“But we’ve got a team and together everyone achieves more and we’ve grafted today, we needed the lads to stand up and be counted at times and they did that today.
“I’m delighted with the group of players, I know we can play football and I know we can score goals, but we’ve also got heart, soul and resilience and we’re a team.
“Of course you want to see the beautiful game getting played, but sometimes you have to roll your sleeves up and show passion and competitiveness and we saw that in abundance today.”
Walsall manager Mat Sadler said: “It was frustrating today because if we’d scored the penalty it’s a completely different game.
“We didn’t do well enough to defend their set plays, which we knew they would be strong at which lead to their goal and that gave them the chance to sit back against us.
“In fairness to Tranmere, they are an extremely experienced and well-drilled team who don’t concede many goals and if you don’t score and then give them a goal to hang onto it’s going to take that bit of magic that we didn’t quite have today.
“There’s only one dressing room I’d want to be in today, but sometimes you don’t get what you deserve.
“We’ll be on the front foot of games like this more often than not this season and that’s the positive I leave with today.”
