Andy Crosby was not getting too carried away after Tranmere claimed their first League Two win of the season with a convincing 4-0 victory over Shrewsbury at Prenton Park.
Taylan Harris opened the scoring after 19 minutes with his first for the club, finishing from close range following Charlie Whitaker’s run and cross.
Three minutes later, Josh Davison doubled the lead with a composed strike from the edge of the box past goalkeeper Toby Savin.
It was almost three before the break but Savin tipped Omari Patrick’s curling shot onto a post.
The Shrews’ hopes of an unlikely comeback faded when Will Boyle was sent off for a second yellow card in the 56th minute.
Patrick sealed the win with a stunning 74th-minute strike into the top corner before Kristian Dennis made it four in the dying minutes.
Rovers boss Crosby said: “I thought the first half was as good as I’ve seen here since I’ve been interim manager or permanent manager.
“It was a squad effort and the starting XI was tweaked from last week.
“I thought we made it really difficult for them to get into any kind of rhythm. We were aggressive, we were intense and we got after the ball.
“There were lots of pleasing things from me, particularly in the first half as I think we were everything that we weren’t last week.
“It’s a really good standard for the first home game and I hope the supporters go home happy with what they’ve seen and how we’ve tried to represent them as a club.
“To win your first home game 4-0 is a good start, but me being who I am, I’ve already said to the players, ‘that’s all it is’.
“It’s not always going to be this good, unfortunately. So we need to enjoy the moment, savour the moment, stay humble and not get too carried away.”
Shrewsbury manager Michael Appleton said: “The damage was done in the first 30 minutes with the two goals we conceded.
“Certainly the substitutes that came on at half-time made an impact and made us better, but then going down to 10 men takes the sting out of it and makes things difficult for us.
“At two-nil, if we did score a goal after the break then you would see a different side to the opposition, but after the sending-off it almost became inevitable.
“There were two positives from the game today. The substitutions we did make gave us a bit of momentum and to be fair the fans kept going and stuck by the players.
“The reality is, we all have to take responsibility.
“There’s two ways of looking at it. I either take responsibility for picking the wrong players or the players who did play take responsibility for not putting a performance in. I think today you’ll probably find it’s somewhere in between, so we all need to take a look at ourselves.”
