A blistering start for Stevenage against Walsall helped reignite their League Two promotion charge, as well as invigorating the Boro faithful.

Josh March and Luke Norris put them 2-0 up after 14 minutes and although Manny Monthe pulled one back, a second from March sealed a 3-1 win all before half-time.

For manager Steve Evans, Boro have been victims of their own success but now with the home support seeing a return to the good old days of earlier in the campaign, they can hopefully look forward to a strong finish this season.

"The start was needed to invigorate the support," said the boss.

"I’ve been very lucky in my life. I'm a Glasgow Celtic supporter and we turn up expecting to win and we normally do it. 

"We've created that expectation here too but when you create an expectation, that's what you get measured against.

"So we get measured against an expectation and suddenly we're hanging off the cliff by our fingernails when we should be sitting there under sun parasols. 

"We knew we had to have a good start and there's not one player where I’ve come away thinking ‘they’ve not done their job’.

"We could be better but we were outstanding in spells and we got a brilliant reaction from the supporters from the way we started. 

"The fans deserve enormous credit. They've probably came to the Lamex today hoping rather than expecting. 

"There's lots more improvement to come, but we did really well." 

The win was the first at home since a 3-0 success against Leyton Orient, a win that was followed by just one success in seven.

Last week's disaster against bottom of the table Rochdale prompted Evans to drag the players into training on their day on.

But he was pleased to say they had delivered.

He said: "We got them in on Sunday because of the first half at Rochdale and because of the first half at Stockport. 

"We wanted to remind them that people have to pay to follow us around the country. We get paid to do it, [the fans] pay to do it. 

"But as a group they've been terrific. We worked them hard with a double session on Sunday, double sessions on Monday, double Tuesday and they didn’t moan, they responded. 

"In spells we were back to how we were. 

"Walsall don’t concede much and when I watched them in midweek, you could understand why. 

"But we went about our business and there were some big performances from individuals for long spells.

"They were terrific goals and reminded me a lot of the first half against Leyton Orient. 

"We've given a poor goal away but we go in 3-1 up and it could have been five or six."

And there was praise for goalscorer March whose double opened up his Boro account.

"There were people on the pitch who’ve not been played for a while and we're still getting them up to speed," said Evans.

"Josh came in but it was only in the last 10 days that we thought he was ready because there was different fitness levels here to where he come from.

"He's a terrific player and he's been patient. 

"We've kept working with him physically and it's paid off. 

 "We need all the players. We're fighting to get huge players out of the treatment room."