Culture change at Stevenage says Steve Evans as away draws are no longer celebrated

Victories over Colchester United and Rochdale have given Boro a renewed boost of confidence and hope that they could avoid relegation from League Two and they headed to Lincolnshire in fine fettle.

In the end Jamie Reid's second-half strike was cancelled out by an equaliser from Harry Bunn 15 minutes from time as the visitors were held 1-1 by their already-relegated hosts.

But despite needing six points from their final four games to guarantee survival, manager Steve Evans says they are no longer a side that will accept draws away from home, especially when he felt they should win.

"It could all change next week," he said. "If we’d got maximum points it would have put us in a good position but we didn’t.

"We need to see what we can earn against Tranmere next week and I know how tough that will be.

"We have to get the team right, we have to get the shape right and we have to get the discipline right.

"We all know this group is working ever so hard but I feel if I’d been here [longer] we’d have been top 10.

"We’re not and we are where we are.

"The one thing we have is some big leaders in the dressing room, some big characters, and the dressing room was hurting when I went in.

"That’s always a good sign that there will be a positive reaction.

"We’re not about celebrating a point away from home [anymore], we know we have to win games to go home happy."

And while Tranmere will "raise the bar in terms of quality of opposition", the boss knows there are plenty of things to work on, taking their chances just one of them.

He said: "I can’t believe we haven’t won because we had chance after chance.

"But nothing changes in football, 1-0 is a dangerous score and you have to get the second.

"If we’d done that we’d have gone on and won the game comfortably.

"We had 23 efforts at goal, total domination in the first half and domination for periods in the second half.

"They were also going to get a chance and it was a fine finish.

"If there’s a criticism we dropped our energy levels in the last 15 minutes and we gave Scunthorpe a sniff.

"If there’s a criticism of me, I perhaps should have changed one or two a bit earlier but this is no difference to playing on a Saturday and then a Tuesday.

"They are a very fit group and we have done some great week since I came in.

"But we’ve left two points in Lincolnshire and now we have to get ready for play-off chasing Tranmere.

"It’s one game at a time and if we’d have won against Scunthorpe, it would have been no different."

Match Stats

Stevenage: Pym, James-Wildin, Coker, Cuthbert, List (Daly 90), Taylor, Norris, Lines, Vancooten, Reid, Bostwick.

Subs (not used): Walker, Prosser, Andrade, Upson, Daly, O'Neill, Read.

Goal: Reid 53

Scunthorpe United: Watson, Delaney, Beestin (Lewis 87), Nuttall (Hallam 65), Rowe, Wilson (Bunn 65), Feeney, Gallimore, Moore-Billam, Young, Matheson.

Subs (not used): O'Malley, Shrimpton, Grant, Foster

Goal: Bunn 75

Booked: Rowe 12, Delaney 47

HT: Scunthorpe United 0 Stevenage 0

Referee: Sebastian Stockbridge (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

Attendance: 2,439

Results - Easter Monday (April 18)

Forest Green Rovers (2) 2 Oldham Athletic (0) 0

Salford City (1) 2 Barrow (0) 2

Scunthorpe United (0) 1 Stevenage (0) 1

League Two table (bottom)

Next games - Saturday (April 23)

Barrow v Sutton United

Oldham Athletic v Salford City

Stevenage v Tranmere Rovers